LIBRARY 

UNIVERSE  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


RESPONSIBILITY 


JAMES  E.  AGATE 


s^arurNau  iLii 


A     No  \ 


J  A  Ml  S    E 


IK 


i 


i  NEW  ^lST         K 

GEOR<  ffl  \1PANY 


RESPONSIBILITY 


A    NOVEL 


BY 


JAMES   E.  AGATE 


NEW  ^SW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PI 

63 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 


TO 

ARNOLD  BENNETT 

IN 
DISCIPLINED  ADMIRATION 


LtTS  LA  CEODC  HAUTE 
PRANCE 

Midsummer,  19 1 8 


Au  grand  jour  du  Seigneur  sera-ce  un  grand  refuge 
D'avoir  eonnu  de  tout  et  la  cause  et  l'effet? 
Et  ce  qu'on  aura  eu  flechira-t-il  un  juge 
Qui  ne  regardera  que  ce  qu'on  aura  fait?  .  . 

L' Imitation  de  Jesus-Christ. 

We  sang  to-night  in  Church,  "  But  when  I  know  Thee 
as  Thou  art,  I'll  praise  Thee  as  I  ought."  Exactly  I 
Till  then,  farewell.  We  are  a  great  little  people,  we 
humans.  If  there  be  no  next  world,  still  the  Spirit  of 
Man  will  have  lived  and  uttered  its  protest. 

W.  N.  P.  Barbellion. 

Read  Thomas  a  Kempis  in  the  train.  It  made  me  so 
angry  I  nearly  flung  it  out  of  the  window.  "Meddle 
not  with  things  that  be  too  deep  for  thee,"  he  says, 
"but  read  such  things  as  yield  compunction  to  the 
heart  rather  than  elevation  to  the  head."    Forsooth  I 

W.  N.  P.  Barbellion. 


RESPONSIBILITY 


INTRODUCTION" 


EN  toute  chose  il  faut  consider er  la  fin.  In  all  things 
the  end  is  to  be  looked  to — in  the  case  of  novels 
the  last  chapter.  Curious  that  the  weakness  of  the 
frail — heart  beating  too  flutteringly  for  a  "good  read" 
until  assured  of  the  fate  of  the  beleaguered  and  dis- 
tressed— should  go  hand-in-hand  with  discernment.  The 
good  reader  demanding  a  bouquet  of  writing  as  well  as 
his  bellyful  of  story  does  well  to  take  the  edge  off  grosser 
appetite  that  he  may  properly  savour  the  fineness  of 
the  dish.  It  is  for  the  epicure's  sake,  therefore,  that 
I  begin  my  story  at  the  end,  simple  madness  to  the 
plain  man  who  will  see  scant  reason  for  not  beginning 
at  the  beginning.  But  I  confess  to  being  an  opportunist 
who  would  make  the  best  of  as  many  worlds  as  there 
may  be,  hankering  in  truth  after  a  still  more  generous 
provision.  Alas  that  man's  creation  of  new  worlds  is 
nowhere  possible  save  in's  own  brain !  The  wise  man 
does  the  best  with  what  he  has,  still  on  this  poor  planet 
rejoicing  in  his  liberty  to  tell  his  story  in  his  own 
way.  I  beg,  therefore,  to  inform  my  readers — or  such 
of  them  as  have  already  indulged  in  furtive  glances 
at  my  last  leaves — that  I  have  been  before  them.  The 
chapter  which  finds  itself  last  in  point  of  binding  is 
in  reality  my  last  but  one,  the  present  page  the  end 
of  the  tale. 

I  am  in  a  Base  Hospital,  my  turn  at  the  war  done, 
my   "bit"    accomplished.      The   doctors  have   decided 

11 


12  INTRODUCTION 

that  I  am  to  be  sent  home  "for  discharge."  Then 
England,  formalities,  and  release.  I  am  unfit  for 
further  service,  without  scars  to  show,  returnable  to 
civil  life  at  forty-nine  and  with  liberty  to  wring  out 
of  the  world  whatever  entertainment  or  what  further 
bitterness  it  yet  may  hold.  My  chief  feeling  is  that  I 
must  be  good  for  effort  yet,  that  life  cannot  be  over. 
There  is  atonement  to  be  made,  an  atonement  non- 
cloistral,  giving  scope  for  effort.  I  have  little  patience 
with  those  natural  heartaches  to  which  the  most  inno- 
cent flesh  is  heir,  the  unmerited  Bufferings  that  are  a 
part  of  normal  inheritance.  My  sympathies  are  with 
the  man  who  has  "only  himself*'  and  not  Providence  to 
blame,  with  the  well-meaning  blackguard,  the  rascal 
who  has  found  it  easier  to  deceive  the  world  than  to 
silence  "the  promptings  of  his  hitter  nature."  It  is 
twenty  years  since  I  "sat  under"  parson,  but  the  worn 
phrases  die  hard.     Jargon  sticks  like  a  burr. 

One  of  my  small  activities  on  return  to  civil  life 
will  be  the  founding  of  a  Society  for  the  Establishment 
of  Greater  Confidence  beween  Author  and  Reader.  I 
hate  to  hold  you,  Sir,  in  suspense;  a  denouement  which 
depends  upon  the  element  of  surprise  is  essentially  a 
disappointment  at  a  second  reading — and  who  is  the 
writer  who  will  be  content  with  a  single  taste  of  his 
quality?  Certain  it  is  that  a  tale  which  is  tolerated 
only  for  its  happenings  is  not  worth  the  dog's  labour 
of  setting  down.  So  I  lay  my  cards  on  the  table.  They 
consist  of  a  sorry  hero,  a  mistress  adored  and  abandoned, 
and  a  son.  That's  the  superficial  story.  Shuffle  the 
cards  as  you  will  and  you  get  the  same  essentials, 
the  same  passion,  the  same  remorse.  And  yet  remorse 
is  hardly  the  word.  Remorse  implies  the  promise 
that  were  you  granted  life  again  you  would  live  differ- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

ently.  Oh  last  poltroonery!  I  understand  a  vow  to 
greater  prudence  and  a  more  careful  closing  of  shut- 
ters, but  not  a  deliberate  avoidance  and  lessening  of 
experience.  I  am  what  I  am,  and  if  I  am  to  act 
differently  at  a  second  venture  I  must  be  made  differ- 
ently. 

I  turn  over  those  sheets  which  have  been  this  year's 
constant  companion  and  wonder  how  a  story  so  absorb- 
ing in  the  living  can  become  so  trivial  in  the  telling. 
I  set  out  to  write  soberly;  correct  as  I  will,  zest, 
flippancy  even,  obtrude  themselves  and  half-obliterate 
the  page.  But  this,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  the  reader's 
good;  ''Xo  whining"  ever  a  proud  device.  I  do  not 
understand  the  subordination  of  general  interest  to 
private  emotion.  Colour  and  sound  go  on  though  the 
texture  of  one's  own  life  be  temporarily  darkened. 
Xo  grief  so  poignant  that  one  cannot  take  up  Macbeth: 
no  reason  why  we  should  not  bury  our  dead  and  deso- 
lately turn  to  Hamlet.  To  lock  the  piano  till  the  crepe 
is  worn  out — see  any  bourgeois  household — is  the  most 
preposterous  of  quarantines.  .    .    . 

I  hope  to  stress  my  private  melancholy  as  little  as 
may  be.  Let  me  make  it  clear  that  though  the  end 
of  the  story  is  not  enlivened  with  wedding-bells  neither 
is  it  faisande  with  the  flavour  of  the  divorce  court.  It 
does  not  end  conclusively  as  a  well-thought-out  sym- 
phony of  life  should  end.  It  does  not  go  down  in 
gloom  like  the  pathetical  Russian's.  Its  final  chord 
has  neither  the  stained-glass  quality  of  Tod  und  Yerk- 
larung  nor  the  last  din  and  crow  of  Reldenleben.  Still 
less  do  I  find  it  paralleled  by  the  tinkle  of  the  slip- 
pered, inconsiderable  Farewell.  If  you  urge  me  to 
a  comparison  I  would  say  an  apotheosis  of  Don  Quixote 
i — heavens !  how  high  we  fly — with  a  hint  of  Til  Eulemr 


14  INTRODUCTION 

spiegel.    I  may  have  missed  my  way  in  life,  but  at  least 
I  know  my  visionaries  and  my  rogues. 

Illegitimacy's  my  theme,  the  slur  of  illegitimacy — 
oh,  not  the  slur  on  the  child,  that  old  stumbling-block 
which  has  defrayed  the  tears  of  the  servants'  hall  since 
servants  learned  to  read,  but  the  slur  on  the  father. 
And  yet  not  slur — I  am  to  stress  the  essential  difference 
between  that  fatherhood  which  is  wilful  and  that  which 
is  careless,  between  the  fulfilment  of  great  purpose  and 
meaningless  gratification.  And  the  moral  ?  I  have 
puzzled  the  nights  through  over  any  possibility  of  moral 
deduction.  I  have  not  been  content  to  let  life  come 
to  me,  I  have  gone  towards  it  urgently.  I  have  satis- 
fied curiosity  and  desire  and  no  obvious  punishment 
has  attended  the  evil  I  have  done.  ''What  have  we 
to  do  with  genus  aud  species,  the  dry  notions  of  logi- 
cians? He  to  whom  the  Eternal  Word  speaketh  is 
delivered  from  a  world  of  unnecessary  conceptions." 
So  Thomas  a,  Kempis.  I  have  talked  my  fill  of  genus 
and  species,  I  have  teased  my  brain  with  the  driest 
notions  of  logicians.  I  have  denied  dogma  and  taken 
my  stand  upon  the  Eternal  Word  of  reason  and  natural 
law.  And,  embracing  logic,  I  have  neglected  the  one 
locical  act  of  man's  existence — the  handing  on  of  the 
will  to  live.  My  unknown  son  comes  to  me  late  in  life 
and  my  worst  punishment  is  that  the  joy  I  have  in  him 
is  illicit,  a  theft  from  nature;  my  sacrifice  of  him 
shorn  of  all  that  nobility  and  grandeur  which  was 
every  English  father's.  And  even  now,  it  is  not  plain 
sailing.  There  was  never  any  question  of  marriage 
with  Clare.  Common-sense  was  against  it;  worldly 
wisdom  has  always  opposed  such  marriages.  And  to 
preach  an  earlier  renunciation  were  for  fools  and  chil- 
dren.    So  that  we  come  to  the  weighing  of  the  injury 


INTRODUCTION  15 

to  Clare  against  the  existence  of  that  fine,  sensitive 
creature  of  our  fashioning — a  weighing  in  the  balance 
which  is  altogether  too  brainsickly. 

11 

Were  I  a  French  writer  I  would  depict  for  you  my 
ward  in  hospital  and  the  blue,  tideless  wash  of  the 
Mediterranean — all  in  half-a-dozen  sentences  and  in 
terms  of  chair-legs,  table-covers  and  garnitures  de 
chemhvee.  No  writers  are  defter  at  deducing  a  people 
from  its  furniture.  They  are  the  Cuviers  of  fiction, 
supposing  it  to  have  been  that  philosopher  who  first 
reconstructed  the  prehistoric  from  its  jaw-bone.  But 
I  am  neither  Cuvier  nor  a  Frenchman,  nor  anything 
more  subtle  than  your  loyal  Briton,  and  a  military 
hospital  is,  alas !  the  most  familiar  thing  in  the  world. 
I  shall  merely  postulate  truckle-beds,  bare  boards  and 
strips  of  matting,  charts  and  electric  light,  neatness  and 
order. 

As  I  sit  about  the  ward  my  mind  goes  back  to  those 
infinitesimal  or  world-shaking  happenings — so  much 
depends  upon  the  point  of  view — which  have  brought 
me  to  my  present  middling  and  inconclusive  pass.  It 
occurs  to  me  that  there  is  something  wrong  with  man's 
sense  of  proportion.  Which  of  us  has  not  heard  some 
Astronomer  Royal  announce  amid  apathy  the  relative 
sizes  of  the  planet  men  inhabit  and  the  one  they  call 
Jupiter  ?  The  sun,  he  will  thunder  out  amid  silence 
which  you  would  do  wrong  to  take  for  apprehension, 
is  I  forget  how  astoundingly  many  times  greater  than 
this  miserable  suburb.  Infinite  Space  is  so  vast,  the 
lecturer  declares,  that  it  is  permissible  to  conceive  of 
stars — why  do  astronomers  always  invite  us  to  con- 
ceive of  a  thing? — whose  light,  though  travelling  at 


16  INTRODUCTION 

a  preposterous  number  of  miles  a  second,  will  be  too 
late  for  the  Earth's  cooling.  Infinite  Time  is  so  long 
that  a  bird  which  shall  brush  Ossa  with  its  wing  once 
in  a  million  years  will,  before  his  first  second  is  run, 
reduce  that  mountain  to  a  wart.  The  lecturer  has  some 
literature,  it  would  seem,  but  enthusiasm  is  confined 
to  water-bottle  and  glass,  skipping  like  the  little  hills 
to  the  thudding  of  a  declamatory  fist.  We  are  invited 
to  conceive  the  inconceivable  by  imagining  the  universe 
as  a  corpuscle  in  the  blood  of  an  undetected  organism. 
Where,  is  all  we  wonder,  did  astronomers  find  time 
for  Anatole  France?  Then  in  pleasant  vein — for  our 
lecturer  is  not  the  pedagogic  ass  pure  and  simple — he 
will  upbraid  us  for  pretending  to  the  particle,  for 
presuming  to  call  ourselves  The  Earth  instead  of  Vul- 
can or  Apollo.  Are  not  our  noses  in  danger  of  being 
put  out  if  it  be  found  at  some  future  date  that  a  rival 
body,  say  the  flighty  and  presumably  French-speaking 
Venus,  shall  all  this  time  have  been  calling  herself  La, 
Terref  Would  she  not  have  done  better  to  content 
herself  with  the  humbler  Chez  Nous,  and  we  with  the 
Saxon  equivalent?  Is  not  all  that  we  are  allowed  to 
know  represented  in  these  two  simple  words?  The 
earth  is  ours  for  the  moment,  though  there  are  those 
who  would  assure  us  of  some  future  habitation,  nebu- 
lous, elusive,  non-committal.  Nor  are  they  even  di- 
mensionally  precise,  these  others;  to  hear  them  it  may 
be  our  destiny  to  become  flatter  than  plaice,  or,  like 
wraiths,  elongable  at  will.  In  the  meantime  we  have 
earth  and  the  minute,  bon  souper,  bon  glte  .  .  .  and 
mankind  makes  war  one  upon  another. 

I  sit  in  this  tidy  ward  and  watch  the  "Sisters" — 
chivalry's  neatest  designation.  Common  soldiers  that 
we  are,  there  is  an  atmosphere  about  "Sister."     The 


INTRODUCTION  17 

better-bred  "Nurse"  had  potency  but  not  magic.  "Sister" 
will  safeguard  a  woman  through  the  dark  passages 
of  a  man's  mind  as  "Doctor"  will  avail  in  the  dark 
alley.  I  sit  and  watch  the  untiring  Sisters  as  they 
patch  the  bodies  and  minds  of  an  undistinguished  score 
of  us,  rough  and  reverential  in  our  ill-fitting  blue,  sun- 
light resting  like  a  benediction  on  our  hands  pale  as  any 
woman's.  Save  for  the  yellow  between  first  and  second 
finger.  You  cannot  escape  the  tell-tale  stains  and 
hold  cigarettes  with  the  lighted  end  towards  the  palm, 
the  thumb  in  readiness  to  flick,  conveyance  to  the  mouth 
effected  tipplingly  with  a  jaunty  turn  of  the  wrist.  All 
soldiers  smoke  so,  a  detail  which  documentors  of  the 
social  epoch  would  do  well  to  note. 

I  gaze  listlessly  at  my  brothers-in-arms,  happy,  go 
the  luck  with  them  or  against,  cheerful,  uncomplaining, 
uncritical.  Maimed  even,  they  have  life  before  them, 
whilst  I  have  only  expiation.  I  have  "got  my  ticket" ; 
to-morrow  I  am  to  be  "evacuated."  Curious  char- 
acteristic of  war  that  it  should  discover  gold  in  much 
of  humanity  which  one  had  carelessly  thought  dross  and 
at  the  same  time  unashamedly  debase  the  currency 
of  intercourse.  "England  expects  that  every  tank  this 
day  will  do  its  damnedest"  is  at  once  the  herald  of 
proud  deed  and  a  blot  on  the  scutcheon  of  speech.  We 
are  to  realise  that  all  beauty  which  is  not  that  of 
efficiency  is  to  hide  her  face  for  a  hundred  years  to 
come.  Or  is  it  only  that  pedantry  and  preciosity  are 
banished?  Certain  we  may  be  that  for  a  generation 
all  music  is  to  be  in  common  time,  the  march  of  victory 
or  that  wringer  of  hearts  from  Saul,  all  verse  a  paean 
or  a  dirge,  all  sculpture  a  triumphant  battle-piece  or 
broken  column,  all  architecture  the  reassembling  of 
the  bricks  of  Belgium.     Hard  for  those  who  care  little 


18  INTRODUCTION 

for  elementary  things,  for  those  now  to  be  put  on  the 
shelf,  encumbrance,  wreckage,  broken  even  for  dilettant- 
ism. Not  for  me  the  heroic  end,  the  contented  sub- 
sidence, that  readiness  which  is  all.  Nenni.  Bather 
the  slow  continuance,  the  looking  back  on  a  life  not  to 
be  resumed,  the  contemplation  of  dead  passion  and 
the  belated  adventuring  af+er  better  things.  Most  un- 
thinkable of  all,  not  even  now  to  be  immune  from  fret 
and  fitfulness.  Is  it  not  grotesque  that  I  who  have 
my  son  to  content  me  should  fear  renewed  fever? 

With  the  Incomprehensible  facing  him,  man  calmly 
contemplates  the  killing  of  his  fellow-man.  Astounding 
to  the  sober-minded  has  been  the  refusal  of  some  of  us 
to  give  more  than  our  lives  for  the  country  in  which 
we  happen  to  have  been  born. 

Et  puisquil  nest  qu'un  del,  pourquoi  tant  de  pa- 
tries?  is  good  poetry  but  poor  patriotism.  I  have  loved 
the  world  too  well  to  love  my  country  best.  When 
England's  intentions  are  worthy  of  her  I  shout  for 
England,  but  that  is  all.  Calm  yourself,  good  reader, 
I  am  no  pacifist.  So  long  as  there  lives  one  hound  of 
hell  who  tortured  brave  lads  at  their  mercy  my  voice 
for  Germanv  is  still. 

The  war,  they  tell  us,  is  the  final  struggle  between  the 
forces  of  Light  and  Darkness.  .  .  .  Shall  Civilisation 
Go  Under?  ...  If  Germany  Wins  Will  the  World 
Be  Worth  Living  In  ?  .  .  .  See  any  platform  speech 
or  newspaper  article  during  the  last  four  years.  Agreed, 
agreed  passionately  if  you  will,  but  are  there  no  other 
things  left  remarkable  beneath  the  visiting  moon? 
Agreed  that  this  war  pigmies  the  clash  of  earlier  civil- 
isations, that  admission  does  not  throw  out  of  draw- 
ing The  Last  Judgment  of  Michael  Angelo  nor  cause 
the  Sonnets  of  Shakespeare  to  limp. 


INTRODUCTION  19 

There  is  a  breed  despised  by  soldiers  who  will  do 
all  a  passionate  patriotism  enjoins  upon  it  except  think 
about  the  war.  The  last  enemy,  we  hold,  is  Death, 
and  He  should  have  no  allies  save  Want,  Disease  and 
Crime.  There  may  have  been  tragedy  and  nobility  in 
the  idea  of  war  when  the  nations  were  children  to- 
gether ;  there  is  tragedy  in  the  present  conflict  and  end- 
less nobility  in  its  wagers,  but  these  will  not  avail  to 
prevent  the  notion  of  war  amongst  Earth's  civilised 
peoples  from  striking,  say,  her  neighbour  planets  as  gal- 
lant buffoonery.  I  hold  war  to  be  unworthy  of  a  mo- 
ment's thought  in  the  sense  that  the  mob  which  guillo- 
tined the  flower  of  France  was  unworthy  of  an  ex- 
quisite's contempt,  in  the  sense  that  the  Teuton,  though 
he  may  maim  and  kill  our  bodies,  has  no  claim  upon 
our  minds.  But  this  is  the  personal  wrangle.  It  is 
the  abstract  state  of  war  which,  draining  our  life- 
blood,  straining  hearts  to  bursting,  is  without  interest. 
Bear  with  me,  reader;  I  am  no  pacifist.  The  war  has 
killed  my  best  friend  and  mutilated  my  son.  I  am  no 
peacemonger,  though  I  declare  war  to  be  folly.  Hail 
the  moderate  man  who  said:  "All  war  is  damnable. 
We  shall  be  scoundrels  if  we  keep  out  of  this !" 

Take  courage,  you  unwarlike  men  of  war  who  have 
stood  the  supreme  test.  Be  of  good  cheer,  you  men 
of  peace  who  have  kept  flying  the  flag  of  the  ideals 
of  peace.  Be  not  downcast,  you  reasonable  civilians. 
Conservatives  with  the  workers'  interests  at  heart,  if 
any  such  exist;  broad-minded  Liberals,  or  such  of  you 
as  fly  so  astonishing  a  banner;  order-loving  Socialists, 
if  the  qualification  does  not  eliminate  you,  lift  up  your 
hearts  and  be  comforted!  As  you  are  statesmen  and 
not  mere  politicians,  be  assured  that  whatever  your 


20  INTRODUCTION 

hands  found  mightily  to  do  in  days  of  peace  will  not 
be  superseded  by  a  mentality  born  of  war. 

I  hold  no  brief  for  any  political  faith.  I  am  in- 
different to  the  measures  for  the  eradication  of  grouse- 
disease  which  engrossed  the  minds  of  the  Conservative 
landowner  in  the  months  before  the  war,  unmoved  by 
those  splendours  of  Proportional  Representation  which 
were  the  stuff  of  your  Radical  journalist's  thoughts  by 
night  and  his  dreams  by  day,  unthrilled  by  any  Socialist 
cry  of  "Every  Man  his  own  Landlord."  And  yet  I 
declare  with  the  utmost  fury  of  which  the  moderate  man 
is  capable,  that  the  dreams  of  plutocrat,  small-holder 
and  agitator  are  in  no  way  relegated  by  the  War.  Hous- 
ing reform,  town  planning,  the  spread  of  education, 
the  combating  of  disease,  the  abolition  of  the  condi- 
tions leading  to  prostitution  and  crime — oh !  I  am 
alive  to  the  born  wanton  and  the  wilful  cut-throat — 
the  smoothing  of  the  path  for  the  succeeding  genera- 
tion, all  this  is  the  work  of  grown-up  men.  Take  heart, 
therefore,  you  unremarkable  town  planners  and  con- 
structors of  garden  cities,  heroic  on  your  own  plane, 
the  peace  to  come  will  restore  you  to  that  work  which 
equally  with  war  is  worth  your  doing. 

Now  I  would  ask  the  reader  to  believe  that  all  those 
cosmic  speculations  hurled  at  him  at  the  beginning  of 
this  chapter  and  all  the  declamatory  nonsense  which 
I  have  a  good  mind  to  turn  back  and  erase,  are  not 
more  than  an  attempt  to  prove  sanity  and  reasonable- 
ness. Are  we,  at  this  point  of  suspension  in  Time 
and  Space,  to  take  our  warlike  squabbles  to  heart,  or 
are  we  to  continue  to  cultivate  our  gardens  ?  Only  by 
such  cultivation,  or  so  it  seems  to  me,  can  a  man  pre- 
serve his  soul.    For  his  garden  is  his  own  affair,  to  grow 


INTRODUCTION  21 

in  it  what  lie  will,  without  word  of  command  or  need 
of  justification. 

•  •  • 

in 

But,  good  Lord!  what  have  we  crawlers  between 
earth  and  heaven  to  do  with  justification?  Poised 
uncertainly  in  Time,  hardly  more  sure  of  Earth,  terra 
firma  as  we  preposterously  dub  her,  than  the  bird  rest- 
ing in  mid-ocean,  are  we  to  adopt  the  Bench's  attitude 
towards  our  frail  selves?  Will  not  the  historian's  do, 
extenuating  little,  accentuating  nothing  ?  Certain  it 
is  that  since  we  cannot  control  our  desires  it  is  foolish 
to  be  ashamed  of  them.  Though  we  may  denounce 
crime  it  is  idle  getting  into  a  pet  with  the  criminal. 
"You  have  adduced  no  reason  why  sentence  of  death 
should  not  be  pronounced  against  you,  but  till  you 
are  hanged  I  shall  be  glad  if  you  will  dine  with  me" 
would  be  a  judicial  pronouncement  saner  than  the  or- 
dinary.    The  other  to  accept  with  dignity. 

It  is  not  crime  nor  the  criminal  instinct  we  should 
be  ashamed  of,  but  folly.  I  should  be  ashamed  to 
prefer  Leader  to  Constable,  La  Fille  de  Madame  Angot 
to  Die  Meister singer,  Max's  parody  to  Meredith's  page, 
any  Jingo  journal  to  The  National  Conscience.  And 
yet,  this  is  not  the  whole  gospel.  There  are  follies 
for  which  I  would  go  to  the  stake.  I  prefer  the  ex- 
pression of  the  world  to  the  world  itself.  I  would 
rather  have  been  Thackeray  than  Wellington,  have  de- 
scribed Becky's  flight  from  Brussels  than  have  won 
the  battle.  I  would  rather  have  written  three  of  the 
four  parts  of  The  Old  Wives'  Tale  than  have  been 
mayor  of  each  of  the  Five  Towns. 

The  idea  of 

Tame  and  shabby  tigers, 


22  INTRODUCTION 

dusty  prisoners  of  the  travelling  menagerie,  pleases  me 
more  than  the  salving  of  whole  companies  of  martyrs. 
I  would  rather  have  invented  the  infamous  boots  of  the 
apache,  the  degenerate  uppers,  the  equivocal  toe-piece, 
the  effeminate  sole,  than  have  been  responsible  for  the 
Code  Napoleon.  I  would  rather  have  found  the 
majestic  close: 

Tout  droit  dans  son  armure,  un    grand  homme  de  pierre 
Se  tenait  a  la  barre  et  coupait  le  flot  noir; 
Mais  le  calme  heros,  courbe  sur  sa  rapiere, 
Regardait  le  sillage  et  ne  daignait  rien  voir. 

than  have  run  the  gamut  of  the  Don's  escapades. 

I  scribble  a  line  or  two  on  the  small  scraps  of  paper 
doled  out  grudgingly  by  the  Sister,  "so  that  you  can't 
worrit  yourself  even  if  you  want  to,"  and  while  away 
the  time  compiling  lists  of  past  delights.  Catalogues 
of  Whitmanesque  sincerity,  in  no  way  a  pose. 

An  old  park  in  our  middle  England,  dripping  trees, 
undergrowth,  decay,  a  lady  many  years  disconsolate; 
bleak,  pinched  moors  and  winding  roads;  old  inns, 
coffee-rooms  and  faded  prints;  high  noon  in  market- 
squares,  the  roguery  of  dealers,  Hodge's  reverence  to 
parson  and  bank  manager ;  all  that  England  which  liea 
between  Hogarth  and  Trollope;  the  placidity  which 
is  content  with  Rydal  Water  and  the  glory  of  Words- 
worth; the  eaves  and  thatches  of  Hertfordshire;  Sur- 
rey's imitation  of  Corot;  the  apple-sense  of  Somerset;^ 
the  mothy  coombes  of  Devon.  And  then  the  reflex 
sentimentality  of  these  direct  emotions  and  the  play 
Stevenson  would  have  made  of  them;  the  Wardour 
Street  glamour  of  such  words  as  sun-dial  and  curfew, 
the  Victorian  lilt  and  cadence  of  that  perfect  raseur 
King  Arthur;  the  saturated  melancholy  of  headstones. 
The  sentimentality  of  parchments;  old  brocades,  fans 


INTRODUCTION  23 

that  have  not  fluttered  and  lace  that  has  not  stirred 
for  a  generation;  the  mouches  and  petulance  of  petites 
marquises;  the  painter's  sense  of  great  ladies. 

I  could  tease  myself  that  these  emotions  are  so  gen- 
eral as  not  to  he  worth  the  setting  down,  were  it  not 
that  strong  affection  loses  nothing  by  being  shared  with 
the  whole  world.  Sealing-wax  and  sailing-ships  fas- 
cinate me  none  the  less  for  having  appealed  to  an- 
other. Yet  there  are  certain  intimate  appreciations, 
discoveries  of  one's  own,  to  be  hugged  exultingly.  Such 
the  homely  lilt  of  ballads,  the  crinolined  grace  of 
She  Wore  a  Wreath  of  Roses,  the  faded  propriety  of 
My  Mother  Bids  Me  Bind  my  Hair.  I  sometimes 
think  they  have  missed  the  better  half  of  life  who  do 
not  know  Claribel,  stern  mistress  of  our  tender  youth, 
inexorable  guide  to  wayward  fingers.  "Well  do  I  re- 
member the  tone  of  ivory  keys  deepening  through  saffron 
to  rich  brown,  the  nubbly,  polished  ebonies,  the  puck- 
ered rose-coloured  silk  lining,  the  fretted  walnut  front, 
the  fantastic  scroll-work  of  the  maker's  name.  Collard 
and  Collard — how  many  hours  did  my  childish  soul 
ponder  over  all  the  possible  combinations  of  father  and 
son,  uncle  and  nephew,  brothers  it  may  be.  I  often 
find  myself  wondering  what  has  become  of  the  old  piano 
over  which  half  my  childhood  was  wept  away.  I  be- 
lieve I  should  know  it  again  by  its  fragrance,  the  frag- 
rance of  my  mother's  fingers.  As  I  write  the  perfume 
steals  across  me. 

I  adore  all  acting,  all  masks  and  subterfuges,  all 
cloaks  and  garbs  of  respectability,  the  obsequiousness 
of  head  waiters  and  the  civility  of  underlings,  all  rogues 
and  vagabonds  soever,  the  leer  of  the  pavement  and 
the  wit  of  the  gutter.  I  love  Bond  Street  at  eleven 
in  the  morning,  Scott's  at  noon,  some  matinee  at  which 


24  INTRODUCTION 

there  shall  be  question  of  faded  emotion — say,  the  old 
retainer's.  And  then  sunset  red  as  a  guardsman's 
tunic  gilding  the  front  of  the  westward-going  'bus,  a 
music-hall,  enough  money  in  my  pocket  to  pay  the 
small-hours'  supper-bill,  the  lights  extinguished  and  by 
the  butt  of  a  glowing  cigar,  a  last  florin  for  its  fellow, 
a  last  sixpence  for  human  debris  insistent  with  pitiful 
whine.  I  love  the  mystery  and  peril  of  the  streets.  I 
love  to  lie  lazily  in  London,  to  loop  my  curtains  and 
surrender  myself  to  the  hypnotic  effect  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-three  stags  and  two  thousand,  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty-two  hounds  in  full  cry  which  I  must 
presume  to  have  been  my  landlord's  taste  in  wall-paper 
some  lustres  ago.  I  like  to  gaze  at  framed  elevens 
and  fifteens,  at  the  jumble  of  racquets  and  clubs,  the 
jowl  of  a  prize-fighter,  Vardon  at  the  top  of  his  swing, 
Miss  Letty  Lind  ineffably  graceful  in  some  Chinese 
fantasy.  I  like  to  look  down  on  Regent  Street — my 
rooms  are  at  the  top  of  a  nest  of  actors'  clubs,  registry 
offices,  shady  money-lenders  and  still  shadier  solicitors 
— and  watch  the  late  last  loiterer.  I  love  to  lie  and 
think  of  the  world  as  my  own,  my  very  own,  in  which, 
though  I  earn  a  living  by  rule  and  in  tune  with  the 
common  whim,  I  may  by  the  grace  of  God  think  what 
I  like  and  choose  the  friends  who  shall  make  me  laugh 
and  the  books  which  shall  make  me  cry.  Every  man 
leads  a  double  life  in  this  most  precious  of  senses.  In 
this  world  of  my  own  I  am  supreme  lord  and  master 
and  may  shatter  and  rebuild  according  to  my  proper 
desire.  Events  in  the  tangible  universe  do  not  as 
events  interest  me  at  all.  Kings  may  die  and  Empires 
fade  away,  but  until  these  happenings  are  presented  in 
some  saturated  phrase  my  consciousness  is  unaffected. 
A  new  planet  is  of  less  moment  to  me  than  a  new  read- 


INTRODUCTION  25 

ing  of  an  old  line.  It  needed  the  Shakespearean  echo 
of  some  journalist's  "Now  is  England  to  be  tested  to  her 
very  marrow"  to  move  me  to  the  full  responsibility  of 
our  pledge  to  Belgium. 

I  love  the  vanity  of  artists  stretching  their  sad 
fastidiousness  on  the  rack  till  perfection  be  found; 
the  martyr's  egotism  which  will  sacrifice  health  and 
life  itself,  not  that  we  may  read  but  that  he  may 
write.  So  the  pride  of  the  soldier  caring  less  for  the 
cause  than  that  he  shall  die  worthily.  I  love  words 
for  their  own  sake.  I  love  the  words  "hyacinth,"  "nar- 
cissus," "daffodil,"  "dog-rose";  their  very  look  on  the 
page  enchants  me;  they  smell  more  sweetly  in  the 
writer's  garden  than  in  Nature's  rank  parterre.  I 
have  never  seen  a  trumpet-orchid,  yet  I  know  that 
when  I  read : 

Fly  forward,  0  my  heart,  from  the  Foreland  to  the  Start — 

We're  steaming  all  too  slow, 
And  it's  twenty  thousand  mile  to  our  little  lazy  isle 

Where  the  trumpet-orchid3  blow. 

the  word  conjures  up  the  nostalgia  of  far-off  seas.  I 
love  the  tinkle  of  "onyx,"  "chalcedony,"  "beryl,"  more 
than  the  trumpery  gauds  themselves.  I  love  the  word 
"must-stained"  without  desire  to  gaze  upon  the  feet  of 
the  treader  of  grapes;  the  words  "spikenard"  and  "ala- 
baster" without  longing  for  pot  or  jar.  I  am  crazy 
for  "jasmine"  and  for  "jade,"  and  were  I  a  French 
writer  you  would  find  jadis  on  every  page.  I  would 
give  the  million  I  do  not  possess  to  flaunt  a  scutcheon 
with  the  device  Desormais!  But  if  I  am  in  love  with 
words,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  have  no  affection 
for  the  idea  also.  Though  I  would  insist  that  the  idea 
shall  emerge  from  the  foam  and  tumble  of  its  wrap- 
pings glorious  as  any  goddess  from  the  sea,  yet  do  I 


26  INTRODUCTION 

not  disdain  to  disentangle  the  writer  from  his  own 
emmeshings,  to  lie  in  wait  for  him,  to  detect  him  in 
his  style.  I  like  to  hear  in  the  slipshod  cadence  of 
Dickens  the  beating  of  his  great  untidy  heart ;  to  trace 
in  the  lowering  of  beautiful  words  to  unromantic  pur- 
pose the  infinite  common-sense  of  his  latter-day  suc- 
cessor; to  nose  the  corruption  of  the  decadent  in  the 
paint  and  powder  of  his  prose.  Words  for  me  are  not 
the  grace-notes  of  existence  but  the  very  stuff  and  tex- 
ture of  life.  This  may  be  madness,  but  it  is  an  honest 
frenzy,  and  remember  that  in  your  own  kingdom  you 
have  the  right  to  be  mad.  I  like  to  think  of  Piccadilly 
as  it  must  have  been  in  those  early  days  which  saw 
me  newed  up  in  our  provinces  of  sterling  worth.  Of 
the  coudoiement  of  notabilities.  Of  the  days  when 
Ellen  Terry  brought  a  new  morning  to  the  jaded  world 
and  Irving  sent  us  shuddering  to  bed ;  when,  touchingly, 
at  eleven-thirty,  Mr  and  Mrs  Kendal  would  make  it  up 
again.  When  Mr  Beerbohm  Tree  was  a  rising  young 
actor  and  Mr  George  Moore  confesses  he  was  young. 
When  those  tremendous  initials,  G.B.S.,  first  growled 
and  thundered  in  the  pages  of  The  Saturday  Review, 
Wilde  had  not  tired  of  confounding  peacockery  with 
prose,  and  the  giant  Wells  was  stirring  in  his  sleep. 
When  Kudyard  Kipling  was  a  power  in  the  land,  Lord 
Rosebery  a  Liberal-Imperialist  hope,  and  it  seemed  as 
though  the  Prince  would  never  be  King. 

iv 

I  am  a  good  lover,  but  an  even  better  hater.  I  have 
an  unparalleled  zest  for  the  most  moderate  of  dis- 
likes. I  mislike — to  put  it  no  more  strongly — a  great 
many  women  and  nearly  all  men,  with  a  special  aver- 
sion for  the  type  of  man  adored  by  women,  mincing- 


INTRODUCTION  27 

mouthed,  luxuriant-polled,  genre  coiffeur.  I  misliko 
the  purist  who  claims  that  one  language  should  be 
enough  for  any  writer  and  secretly  begrudges  Csesar  his 
dying  Latinism ;  and  I  mislike  all  those  honest  folk  who 
insist  upon  taking  you  at  the  foot  of  the  letter  instead 
of  at  the  top,  or  at  least  half-way  down.  I  dislike  all 
aldermen,  mayors,  beadles,  janitors,  pew-openers,  the 
whole  bag  of  officialdom;  all  sham  repentances  and 
most  sincere  ones;  all  those  to  whom  the  night  brings 
counsel ;  the  oncle  a  succession  and  the  pliant  inheritor ; 
the  little  ninny  who  insists  that  the  Moonlight  Sonata  is 
by  Mendelssohn.  I  have  a  contempt  for  the  Christian 
who  looks  down  upon  the  Jew,  the  white  man  who  ani- 
madverts against  the  black.  I  have  a  horror  of  the 
Freemason  in  his  cups ;  of  the  players  of  solo-whist ;  of 
the  actor  with  pretensions  towards  edification  claiming 
to  raddle  his  face  that  ultimately  fewer  women  may 
raddle  theirs,  who  "asks  a  blessing"  on  his  Hamlet.  I 
hate  the  commonplaces  of  the  train,  the  street  and  the 
market.  I  abhor  the  belly  of  the  successful  man  and 
the  swelling  paunch  of  the  Justice.  I  am  out  of  pa- 
tience with  that  sentimental  midwifery  which  regards 
marriage  as  an  infallible  inoculation  against  light  de- 
sire. I  detest  Shakespeare's  Isabella,  all  maids  who 
place  too  high  a  value  on  their  chastity  and  all  harlots 
who  sell  theirs.  But  my  particular  loathing  is  re- 
served for  the  unknowledgeable  fool  who  savs  in  his 
heart:  "These  things  are  not  within  my  experience; 
therefore  they  cannot  be  true." 


Lying  between  like  and  dislike  is  the  fascinating 
region  of  reconciliation.  There  are  many  things  in  life 
that  I  want  to  reconcile. 


28  INTRODUCTION 

The  tragedies  of  doting  fathers  and  renegade  sons, 
of  mothers  who  live  for  their  children  and  children 
who  live  for  themselves;  the  wisdom  of  elders  and 
the  banality  of  their  phrase;  the  nndeniability  and 
tediousness  of  old  fools;  the  wrong-headedness  of  the 
grocer's  view  of  art  and  his  well-placed  distrust  of  the 
artist;  the  amusingness  of  people  and  their  harmful- 
ness;  the  vigour  and  beauty  of  the  Bible  and  the  rus- 
ticity of  its  writers;  the  philosophic  acceptance  of  a 
First  Cause  as  inconscient  as  the  telephone  and  the 
strong  inclination  to  say  one's  prayers;  the  faculty 
to  cope  with  Kant  and  the  childlike  aptitude  for  faith ; 
the  sheepishness  of  the  Shakespearean  mask  and  the 
sublimity  of  the  poet;  the  greatness  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  the  pretentiousness  of  her  virginity ;  the  grace 
of  Charles  the  Martyr  and  his  unending  folly;  the 
greasy  corpulence  of  Gautier  and  the  perfection  of  his 
verse ;  the  divine  murmur  of  Verlaine  and  the  cretin's 
mentality. 

I  want  to  reconcile  the  generosity  and  the  greed  of 
harlots;  my  own  rare  moments  of  appreciation,  when 
words  are  too  gross  to  serve,  and  the  physical  peace- 
time habit,  half  sporting-tipster,  half  bookmaker's  tout, 
bluff,  Homburg-hatted,  Edwardian;  all  envelopes  with 
their  contents,  all  wrappings  with  their  spirit. 

Then  come  the  things  I  want  to  know,  millions  of 
them. 

I  want  to  know  which  is  the  more  pitiful,  a  calculat- 
ing head  on  young  shoulders  or  an  old  man  wearing 
gravewards  with  spirit  undimmed;  why  priests  are 
snuffy  in  habit,  and  the  established  clergy  apt  to  con- 
found the  Oxford  manner  with  the  Christian;  why 
dissent  is  unfashionable;  the  relation  of  academies  to 


INTRODUCTION  29 

their  parent  arts;  whether  your  middle-class  hostess 
would  not  prefer  at  her  dinner-table  a  financier  batten- 
ing upon  widows  and  orphans  to  a  woman  "without 
her  lines." 

But  more  than  all  these  and  last  of  all,  at  least 
last  in  the  categorical  vein,  I  want  to  know  why 
mediocre  self-seeking,  indifferent  cowardice  and  half- 
hearted meanness  should  be  the  pillars  of  provincial 
society.  In  the  Metropolis  blackguardism  is  at  least 
downright  and  frank.  Cloak  these  tempered  and  pro- 
vincial vices  with  a  moderate  standing,  a  tolerable 
income,  a  sufficiently  old-fashioned  brougham — a  livery 
of  discretion  in  a  word — and  you  have  the  provincial 
backbone.  Your  tatterdemalion  and  arch-scoundrel  are 
equally  insecure;  it  is  your  petty  prosperer  who  creeps 
through  life  immune,  crawls  at  the  last  to  his  unre- 
markable grave.  I  speak  here  of  the  small  employer,  the 
good  easy  man  who  cracks  a  tolerable  joke  at  his  club 
and  is  facetious  in  the  train.  I  speak  of  my  uncle. 
My  intention  is  to  portray  him  as  he  was,  to  set  him 
forth  with  scrupulous  fairness,  to  display  in  the  best 
of  lights  his  ostentatious  goodness  and  egregious  bon- 
homie. ...  But  all  in  good  time  and  everything  in  its 
place;  I  have  not  yet  emptied  my  sack  of  inquisitive- 
ness. 

There  are  so  many  other  things  knowledge  of  which 
I  most  urgently  desire,  things  not  to  be  found  in  tables 
of  velocities  and  masses.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
grasp  the  scientific  side  of  learning  and  am  ignorant 
of  the  simplest  natural  phenomena,  the  way  it  pleases 
the  moon  to  shine  and  the  tides  to  ebb  and  flow.  Do 
I  desire  to  go  a-courting  I  can,  by  looking  in  the 
almanack,   find  out  moonshine.     Do  I  want  to  play 


30  INTRODUCTION 

cricket  on  the  sands — sole  occasion  on  which  the  tides 
concern  me — is  there  not  always  a  little  wooden  shrine 
with  a  clock-face  and  the  legend  "High  Water  at  "  ? 
I  have  never  met  the  schoolmaster  who  could  explain 
a  logarithm  in  its  quiddity  or  define  the  relations  of 
sine  and  cosine.  I  take  it  on  trust  that  two  and  two 
make  four,  and  am  content  in  the  knowledge  that  when 
I  happen  to  have  money  lying  in  a  bank  the  clerk, 
with  the  help  of  King's  Interest  Tables,  will  be  able  to 
tell  me  how  much  I  may  draw.  All  these  things  are  to 
me  part  of  the  knowledge  which  is  no  knowledge.  But 
I  do  very  desperately  want  to  know  the  meaning  of 
the  two-page  cipher  in  Balzac's  La  Physiologie  du 
Mariage;  whether  in  Flaubert's  L'Education  Sentir 
mentale  Madame  Arnoux  would  have  yielded  at  the 
last ;  why  Trench  writers  are  incapable  of  quoting  Eng- 
lish correctly;  why  it  is  impossible  to  procure  in  any 
French  bookshop  Monnier's  portrait  of  the  delectable 
PrudJiomme ;  why  our  allies  offer  whisky  as  an  aperitif 
with  sugared  water  and  a  teaspoon;  when  Frenchmen 
will  cease  to  pose  for  their  beards.  Then  again,  I  in- 
tend to  have  it  out  with  the  brilliant  author  of  The 
Old  Wives'  Tale;  to  ask  him  why  to  the  impeccable 
first,  second  and  fourth  parts  he  must  needs  add  that 
improbable  third.  What  would  you  imagine  a  French- 
man to  be  like?  is  the  poser  set  to  the  benighted  Five- 
Townsman,  and  pat  comes  the  answer :  Chirac,  dapper, 
courtly,  Leechified !  Seen  through  the  Povey  spectacles 
Paris  looks  pale!  This,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  my  third 
reference  to  a  wonderful  book,  and  I  hold  out  no 
promise  that  it  shall  be  my  last.  I  do  not  see  why  I 
should  debar  myself  from  paying  tribute  as  often  as 
the  fancy  takes  me. 


INTRODUCTION  31 

vi 

What  a  plague  is  ennui !  To  have  been  everywhere, 
seen  everything,  done  everything,  to  have  used  up  the 
senses  and  let  slip  the  supreme  boon  is  of  all  moral 
diseases  the  last  incurable.  To  be  tired  of  oneself  and 
one's  proficiencies,  of  the  feel  of  a  cue,  the  whip  of  a 
club,  the  way  the  racquet  comes  up  in  the  hand,  the 
touch  of  reins,  the  "handle"  of  your  favourite  book, 
all  this  is  indeed  to  find  the  world  flat  and  unprofit- 
able. Nothing  remains  says  your  quack  but  to  take 
his  pills.  Nothing  remains  but  to  follow  my  system 
of  exercises,  declares  some  frock-coated  Hercules. 

There  is,  we  have  often  been  told,  valour  and  to 
spare  in  the  spirit's  triumph  over  the  flesh.  But  there  is 
ignominy,  I  take  it,  in  a  romantic  spleen  giving  way 
to  massage,  in  a  fine  frenzy  of  melancholy  yielding 
before  a  system  of  exercises.  I  know  nothing  more 
humiliating  than  this  o'ercrowing  of  the  spirit  by  the 
body.  Hamlet  himself  had  done  less  girding  at  the 
world  if  he  had  not  been,  as  Gertrude  remarks,  in 
poor  condition.  That  the  world  is  out  of  joint  is  an 
old  cry.  It  belongs  to  our  day  to  advertise  all  that 
loss  of  figure  and  excess  of  flesh,  baldness  and  super- 
fluous hair,  tuberculosis,  hemorrhoids,  impotence,  vices 
du  sang,  maladies  secretes,  which  are  our  inheritance. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  fathom  the  delicate  arts' 
survival  of  these  natural  shocks.  Greatly  in  their  fa- 
vour has  been  the  lateness  of  the  world's  discovery 
of  electricity,  X-rays,  Swedish  drill  and  physical  exer- 
cises. A  Musset  the  picture  of  rude  health,  a  Chopin 
who  should  dedicate  a  nocturne  to  Mr  Sandow,  a  Shel- 
ley pere  de  famille,  a  Baudelaire  who  should  be  an 
inside  right  to  be  reckoned  with — these  were  unthink- 


32  INTRODUCTION 

able.  But  it  is  no  part  of  the  story-teller's  business 
to  argue,  especially  when  he  is  not  too  sure  of  his  case, 
and  you  could  shatter  mine  by  citing  the  admirable 
boxer  who  is  responsible  for  Pelleas  and  Melisande. 

What  I  am  driving  at  is  that  life  is  never  as  exquisite 
nor  as  tragic  as  it  appears  on  the  surface.  I  am  plagued 
with  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  tendency  of  things  to 
find  their  own  level,  and  I  see  the  world  through  com- 
mon-sense spectacles.  With  me  the  exquisite  moment  is 
of  short  duration ;  subsidence  is  always  at  hand.  Grief 
is  tragic,  but  its  expression,  except  in  the  hands  of 
the  trained  actor,  grotesque.  A  woman  in  tears  is 
the  most  monstrous  of  spectacles,  birth  as  lamentable 
as  death,  the  terror  of  many  an  honest  execution  marred 
by  the  vulgarity  of  the  hangman  and  our  vision  of  the 
glass  which  is  to  refresh  him.  What,  we  ask,  remains 
for  the  fellow  in  the  evening  of  his  days  save  the 
decline  to  some  bar-parlour  ?  Life  is  always  taking 
the  edge  off  things,  and  it  is  become  the  fashion  to 
scoff  at  the  monster  and  the  grand  detraque.  One 
laughs  them  out  of  existence,  poor  souls.  Life  is  rea- 
sonable and  sane ;  your  true  realist  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  bravura.  Life  is  exactly  like  a  common- 
sensical  novel  by — never  mind  whom — and  I  fear  some- 
times lest  the  Ultimate  Cause  be  made  after  that  au- 
thor's image.  And  yet  the  most  modern  writers  have 
their  cowardices.  Which  of  them  dares  portray  a  murd- 
erer bored  with  the  imbecile  chunnerings,  the  senile  ir- 
relevancies  of  his  judge  ?  Which  of  them  will  attribute 
the  clear  eye  and  healthy  appetite  of  the  released  con- 
vict less  to  the  joy  of  freedom  than  to  a  regime  of  regular 
hours  and  enforced  abstinences  ?  They  are  afraid  of 
their  readers,  and  rightly.  What  reader  would  tolerate 
that  I  should  set  down  my  real  feelings  on  nearing  dis- 


INTRODUCTION  33 

charge  ?  From  me  is  expected  relief  from  the  intermit- 
tent panic,  the  perpetual  dread,  the  nameless  horror, 
whereas  all  I  have  to  tell  is  of  escape  from  an  ecstasy  of 
boredom.  The  truth  is  that  even  fear  cannot  endure 
for  ever ;  the  human  mechanism  has  its  limits.  Soldiers 
have  told  of  the  power  at  the  long  last  to  put  fear  he- 
hind,  not  that  desperate  fear  which  is  the  moment  of 
valour's  catch  in  the  throat,  but  the  more  serious 
dread,  the  dull  foreboding  of  inaction.  Man  cannot 
keep  his  mind  for  ever  on  the  rack ;  God  is  to  be  thanked 
that  we  have  not  complete  control  of  our  mentality.  I 
have  to  reason  myself  to  consciousness  of  the  great 
deeds  which  are  afoot;  I  have  come  to  feel  intuitively 
that  death  is  cheapening  and  that  it  has  become  a  little 
thing  to  die. 

A  little  thing  in  one  sense,  how  tremendous  in  an- 
other! My  reverence  for  the  common  soldier  exceeds 
all  bounds.  Even  more  vital  than  the  compulsion  to 
mete  out  to  hellish  torturers  the  measure  they  meted 
out  to  their  helpless  victims  is  the  obligation  of  his 
country  to  see  that  no  common  soldier  who  has  served 
in  France  shall  ever  know  the  meaning  of  want.  It  is 
for  the  nation  to  adopt  its  cripples  and  its  maimed, 
to  exact  from  the  poor  man  his  contribution  of  work 
and  from  the  rich  man  even  to  one  hundred  per  cent, 
of  that  which  he  hath,  rather  than  that  a  single  one  of 
these  unmurmuring  brave  should  starve.  Yesterday 
a  man  died  in  my  ward,  a  man  whom  in  ordinary  times 
one  would  have  dismissed  as  a  drunkard  and  a  lecherer. 
I  am  not  content  with  these  old  classifications;  I  am 
not  content  with  a  future  life  for  this  soldier  which 
shall  be  all  Michael  Angelo  and  Sebastian  Bach.  There 
must  be  a  paradise  for  the  simpletons  as  for  picked 


34  INTRODUCTION 

spirits.  I  am  not  content  with  a  roll-call  of  the  illustri- 
ous dead  who  shall  arise  to  greet  the  coming  of  our 
latter-day  heroes — great  Edward  and  great  Harry,  the 
swingeing  Elizabethan  blade,  business-like  Round- 
head and  inefficient  Cavalier.  Marlborough,  Welling- 
ton, Napier,  Nicholson,  Havelock,  Gordon — the  shining 
list  does  not  suffice.  I  am  not  content  though  Nelson 
return  a  millionfold  the  kiss  he  received  from  Hardy. 
I  want  a  Valhalla  which  shall  not  be  a  palace  but  a 
home.  I  think  I  could  trust  Lamb  to  make  a  sufficient 
welcome,  though  it  is  to  Falstaff  I  should  look  to  dis- 
course of  honour  in  a  strain  bearable  to  soldier  ears. 
Nectar  and  ambrosia  may  be  good  taking  but  there 
must  be  familiar  grog  and  laughter  and  good-fellowship. 
I  want  a  heaven  in  which  horses  shall  be  run,  and  the 
laying  of  odds  allowed  a  sinless  occupation.  I  want  to 
see  Sayers  and  Heenan  fight  it  out  again,  to  roar  at 
Dan  Leno,  to  watch  old  Grace  till  the  shadows  grow 
long. 

The  most  bizarre  conceptions  assail  me.  I  do  not 
despair  of  finding  a  good  terrier,  a  sufficiency  of  rats 
and  an  unoccupied  corner  of  the  marble  floor.  I  want 
not  only  the  best  the  celestial  architects  may  contrive 
in  the  way  of  saloons  but  I  want  the  atmosphere  of  bar 
parlours;  I  want  pipes  of  clay  and  pint-pots  of  jasper, 
common  briars  and  spittoons  of  jade.  Out  of  doors, 
playing-fields  with  well-matched  teams,  keen-eyed  um- 
pires, hysterical  supporters  and  tapering  goal-posts. — 
chrysoprase  if  you  insist,  but  common  deal  will  do — 
and  a  feeling  that  once  a  week  it  will  be  Saturday 
afternoon. 

I  remember  reading  in  some  exquisite  diary  of  the 
war  this  letter  of  a  soldier : 


INTRODUCTION  35 

Dear  Mum,  and  Dad,  and  loving  sistees  Rose, 
Mabel  and  our  Gladys, — I  am  very  pleased  to  write 
you  another  welcome  letter  as  this  leaves  me  at  present. 
Dear  Mum  and  Dad  and  loving  sisters,  keep  the  home- 
fires  burning.  Not  arf!  The  hoys  are  in  the  pink. 
Not  arf!  Dear  loving  sisters,  Rose,  Mabel  and  our 
Gladys,  keep  merry  and  bright.     Not  arf ! 

I  place  this  amongst  the  most  pathetic  and  most 
beautiful  of  the  world's  letters.  It  brings  tears,  and 
the  refrain  "Rose,  Mabel  and  our  Gladys"  has  the 
plaintiveness  of  a  litany. 

I  want  a  heaven  for  this  writer  that  shall  please  him. 

vii 

It  is  not  often  that  writers  avow  even  to  themselves 
the  extent  to  which  their  own  souls  enter  into  their 
projections.  Whereas  we  have  in  this  migration  the 
key  to  all  that  matters,  to  all  that  is  intent  and  pur- 
pose apart  from  the  mere  bricks  and  mortar  of  the 
story.  That  wit  was  perfectly  right  who  said  that 
authors  do  not  hire  steam-engines  to  write  their  books 
for  them.  Autobiographical  fiction  is  the  more  par- 
donable, it  seems  to  me,  the  firm  decision  taken  that  it 
shall  be  the  author's  last  essay.  I  am  determined  that 
this  shall  be  so  in  the  present  case.  One  cannot  go 
on  adding  postscripts  for  ever.  I  have  written  nine 
books  in  all,  five  in  my  own  "name  that  were  books  in- 
deed, the  other  four  the  world-famous  Pig-Pig!  series, 
of  which  the  authorship  stands  here  first  revealed.  I 
challenge  any  reader  of  this  page  to  declare  a  previous 
inkling  that  the  great,  glorious  and  altogether  wonder- 
ful Mr  Pig-Pig!  was  the  creation  of  Edward  Marston. 

It  saddens  me  to  take  down  my  five  volumes  from 


36  INTRODUCTION 

their  melancholy  shelf.  I  had  long  ago  ceased  to 
handle  them  were  it  not  that  type  and  paper,  nay  the 
very  matter  itself,  are  the  better  for  an  airing.  The 
page  mellows  with  human  contact.  I  am  tired  of  the 
pride  of  print,  the  bricklayer's  content  in  the  hundred 
thousand  words  piled  one  upon  another.  I  have  out- 
lived even  the  artist's  pride  of  craftsmanship,  the  con- 
jurer's delight  in  manipulation  and  the  perfect  illusion. 
There  was  a  time  when  I  would  turn  to  any  page  in 
Tt'uth  and  Untruth,  and  say:  "Yes,  I  meant  that,  not 
a  hair's  breadth  more,  not  a  shade  less,  just  that." 
Perhaps  I  have  mastered  this  pride  rather  than  out- 
lived it.  It  is  not  well  to  hug  one's,  talent — I  use  the 
word  for  want  of  a  humbler — entirely  to  oneself.  And 
none  of  my  five  books  enabled  me  to  share  mine  with 
more  than  eight  hundred  readers  apiece,  to  judge  from 
the  returns  punctually  rendered  by  my  four  publishers, 
of  whom  one  only  braved  the  maxim  as  to  the  pre- 
cautions to  be  taken  being  once  bitten.  They  absorbed 
nine  precious  years,  did  these  strenuous  five,  and  my  net 
"takings"  amounted  to  less  than  one  hundred  pounds. 
I  have  dealt  on  all  possible  bases,  royalty,  sale  out- 
right, percentage  of  profit,  with  risk  and  even  with 
certainty  of  loss.  Strange  to  say,  it  was  my  co-partners 
in  this  last  adventure,  a  high-class,  historic,  chivalrous 
house,  "tainted  with  literature"  as  their  pushing  com- 
petitors dubbed  them,  who  consented  to  look  at  me  a 
second  time.  "Remember,"  said  the  senior  partner 
with  old-fashioned  courtesy,  "remember  that  we  have  a 
tradition.  We  bought  tooth-powder  for  Byron!  We 
don't  drop  a  man  because  he  doesn't  pay  in  the  first 
five  minutes." 

What  I  wanted  was  not  income  but  appreciation 
for  my  books;  not  so  much  the  reviewer's  stuff,  for 


INTRODUCTION  37 

the  chilliness  of  which  I  was  prepared,  but  the  com- 
pensating letters  from  unknown  readers.  Perhaps  I 
did  want  to  be  noticed  by  the  big  men.  That  it  is 
better  playing  with  a  lion's  whelp  than  with  an  old  one 
dying  is  not  true  of  the  young  writer.  Better  to  be 
fretfully  roared  out  of  existence  than  indifferently 
patronised  by  the  jackal.  Twice  only  have  I  figured 
over  the  coveted,  tremendous  initials ;  for  the  young 
writer  has  first  to  win  his  spurs,  and  it  would  seem  that 
these  are  in  the  bestowal  of  the  critical  apprentice. 
Truth  and  Untruth  was  pronounced  by  one  young 
gentleman  to  bear  a  marked  resemblance  to  Butler's 
The  Way  of  All  Flesh.  True  that  I  had  never  cast  eyes 
upon  that  work ;  the  proofs  of  pilfering  were  irrefutable. 
Another  bright  sprig  claimed  that  my  book  was  "col- 
oured with  Neoplatonism,"  of  which  wild-fowl  I  knew 
less  than  nothing.  Followed  a  disquisition  upon 
schools,  to  my  mind  the  least  profitable  form  of  raking 
among  old  bones.  I  know  nothing  about  such  classifica- 
tions and  care  less.  To  me  Zola  is  a  romantic  for 
the  reason  that  his  story  of  the  old  wife  keeping  her 
weather-eye  open  against  a  husband's  attempts  to 
poison  her  gives  me  as  authentic  a  thrill  as  any  tale  of 
treasure.  I  call  Stevenson  a  great  realist,  since  he 
makes  me  feel  nearer  to  the  unutterable  Huish  than  I 
do  to  the  hero  of  L'Assommoir.  I  have  always  found 
that  the  assorters  and  classifiers,  the  pedants  and  the 
schoolmasters,  the  entire  professorial  brood  in  a  word, 
are  as  ignorant  of  the  spirit  as  they  are  apt  with  the 
letter.  I  belong  to  no  school.  When  I  am  in  the 
mood  Hugo  is  superb;  according  as  the  wind  blows 
Mr  Henry  James  is  our  greatest  writer  or  the  sheer 
unreadable.  I  own  no  master  and  am  not  vain  enough 
to  dream  of  disciples.     In  the  same  breath  I  have  been 


38  INTRODUCTION 

praised  for  fastidiousness  and  blamed  for  slovenly 
workmanship  and  skimped  design.  God !  when  I  think 
that  I  built  my  books  as  reverently  as  a  cathedral  and 
laid  their  foundations  with  as  monumental  a  care. 
I  would  not  have  the  reader  imagine  that  this  is  the 
mere  fretfulness  of  failure.  I  can  suffer  failure.  And 
yet  it  rankles  when  I  see  praise  bestowed  on  the  slip- 
shod journeyman  unintrigued  by  his  art. 

In  cold  blood  I  am  inclined  to  think  my  books  not 
so  very  remarkable.  At  times  I  fear  lest  they  wear 
too  closely  the  air  of  the  masterpieces  ...  of  others ! 
There  are  moods  in  which  The  Porcelain  Dome  seems  to 
be  Mademoiselle  de  Maupin  all  over  again  without, 
shamefaced  islander  that  I  am,  the  preoccupation  of 
sex.  It  has  the  enamelled  sky,  the  Berlin- wool  sunsets, 
the  swansdown  clouds.  White  Wings  is  a  rhapsody 
of  the  enskicil  and  sainted,  but  isn't  there  in  the  title 
a  hint,  the  smallest  possible  hint,  of  Miss  Charlotte  M. 
Yonge?  Agnes  is  a  sympathetic  study  of  the  pros- 
titute, owing  something  to  La  Fille  Elisa  and  to  Murine. 
This,  the  first  book  of  mine  to  be  reviewed  over  for- 
midable initials,  I  had  named  without  reckoning  on 
the  reviewer's  cruel  wit  and  the  music-hall's  foremost 
roysterer.  Never  shall  I  forget  that  Saturday  after- 
noon when,  opening  with  trembling  fingers  the  historic 
journal,  I  saw  my  book  bleeding  under  the  headline: 
"I'm   ashamed  of  you,   Ag-er-ness!" 

For  my  fifth  work  I  determined  to  leave  no  stone  un- 
turned to  draw  the  public  attention.  For  excuse  let 
me  say  that  I  am  naturally  impatient  and  that  posterity 
is  a  long  wray  off.  I  made  things  easy  for  the  reader. 
I  divided  the  story  into  books  with  distinctive  titles 
not  hard  to  remember,  and  each  book  into  chapters 
with  enticing  headings.     Each  page  bore  at  the  top  an 


INTRODUCTION  39 

infantile  indication  of  its  contents  in  words  of  one  syl- 
lable. The  volume  was  prefaced  with  a  key-quotation 
in  English.  I  chose  a  firm  of  publishers  renowned  for 
their  lack  of  squeamishness,  and  took  advantage  of  a 
momentary  lull  in  their  flood  of  unsavoury  memoirs. 
I  connived  at  the  suggestion  that  the  MS.  had  come 
mysteriously  into  their  hands.  I  let  it  be  understood 
that  the  characters  were  fashioned  "like  Pharaoh's 
soldiers  in  the  reechy  painting."  For  a  month  I  ar- 
ranged for  paragraphs  in  the  leading  society  journals 
beginning:  "A  little  bird  tells  us  .  .  ."  and  "It  is 
whispered  that  ..."  And  then  the  authorship  of 
the  impending  publication,  which  those  who  had  been 
"privileged  to  see  in  manuscript"  pronounced  to  be 
"startling,"  was  allowed  to  leak  out.  I  was  interviewed 
by  camera,  "Getting  into  the  Mercedes,"  "Taking  Bully 
for  his  Walk" — two  guineas  the  hire  of  the  brute  cost 
me — "Chuckling  over  Punch's  Review  of  his  Last 
Novel,"  "Subscribing  to  the  Children's  Sea-Side  Fund." 
I  regretted  my  celibacy,  the  non-existence  of  a  wife 
who  might  also  be  photographed  "Getting  into  the 
Napier,"  "Teaching  Fido  to  Beg,"  "Tell  me,  Nurse, 
how  is  Baby?"  "As  Cleopatra  at  the  Albert  Hall." 
There  was  no  baseness  to  which  I  did  not  descend.  I 
altered  the  title  from  The  Middling  Venture,  which  the 
publishers  thought  smacked  too  dangerously  of  Henry 
James,  to  Plunv-Tree  and  Amber,  or  The  Satirical 
Rogue,  the  one  hint  of  quality  in  all  the  welter  of 
paragraphing.  And  in  this  guise  I  gave  to  the  world 
the  most  careful,  the  most  sincere  and  the  most  tem- 
perate work  of  which  I  am  capable.  "Betrays  a  plenti- 
ful lack  of  wit,"  thundered  the  tremendous  initials. 
"This  author,  like  the  crab,  goes  backward."  The 
book  did  not  even  sell.    I  was  an  accredited  failure. 


40  INTRODUCTION 

Now  let  me  be  quite  clear  upon  this  matter  of  fail- 
ure. I  am  prepared  to  believe  that  the  books  were  not 
masterpieces.  In  the  long  run  work  of  genius  is 
never  allowed  to  die,  and  that  my  books  are  dead  proves 
that  they  had  no  claim  to  the  supreme  category.  That 
they  had  more  labour  spent  on  them  than  genius,  so 
often  careless,  demands;  that  they  were  conceived  in 
agony  and  brought  forth  after  bloody  travail  is  beside 
the  point.  They  are  a  part  of  my  life  which  I  have 
left  definitely  behind;  I  can  laugh  at  old  bitterness, 
and  besides,  have  I  not  Pig-Pig !  to  console  me  ? 

The  reader  will  remember  him  well ;  he  came  a  year 
or  two  after  Trilby  had  exhausted  her  vogue.  The 
hoardings  were  alive  with  him;  he  crowded  all  other 
literature  off  the  railway  bookstalls.  He  was  to  be 
met  with  in  'buses  and  in  trains,  in  drawing-rooms,  in 
seaside  lodging-houses  and  on  the  beach.  The  circulat- 
ing library  displayed  cards:  Mr  Pig-Pig  is  OUT,  by 
which  they  implied  the  feverish  wetting  of  a  hundred 
thumbs.  A  witty  judge  began  his  summing  up  in  a 
cause  celebre  with  the  words :  "Gentlemen  of  the  Jury, 
this  case  is  not  unique,  but  it  possesses  what  Mr  Pig-Pig 
would  call  uniquosity."  The  reader  will  remember 
the  charming  personality  portrayed  on  the  covers  of 
the  four  volumes,  in  countless  toys,  trinkets,  charms, 
on  chocolate  boxes  and  on  tins  of  boot  polish.  He  will 
remember  the  white-toppered,  morning-coated,  monocled 
little  porker,  with  a  huge  "Flor  de  Pig-Pig"  cigar  at 
the  corner  of  his  gentlemanly  mouth.  Four  shillings 
and  sixpence  to  the  public,  the  little  man  brought  me 
in  twenty  thousand  pounds.  And  then  there  were  the 
cheap  editions.  Twopence  a  copy  is  not  much,  but  it 
mounts  up,  dear  reader,  it  mounts  up.  I  have  never 
been  able  to  account  for  the  book's  popularity.     It  was 


INTRODUCTION  41 

Swift  without  the  savagery  and  Sterne  without  the  wit. 
It  represented  the  youth  of  this  country  growing  through 
stuttering  nonage  to  the  maturity  of  silent  strength, 
silent  because  it  has  nothing  to  say.  Plain  Mr  Pig-Pig! 
was  the  title  of  the  first  volume.  Pig-Pig  Goes  One 
Better! — I  had  artfully  dropped  the  "Mr" — was  the 
second.  Then  Pig-Pig  en  Voyage  ! — The  French  tickled 
'em  immensely — and  finally  Pig-Pig  Settles  Up  and 
Down!  And  of  course  there  were  the  subdivisions. 
Pig-Pig  and  the  Tender  Passion!  Pig-Pig  and  Neme- 
sis! Pig-Pig  Counts  the  Cost!  I  tell  you  I  let  myself 
go. 

I  have  often  pondered  over  the  possibility  of  genius 
writing  masterpieces  with  one  hand  and  pot-boilers 
with  the  other.  But  the  degradation  is  too  abject. 
Far  better  to  write  your  rubbish  before  you  are  thirty- 
five  and  retire  on  your  dishonest  competence.  God 
grant  you  the  power  to  keep  your  genius  unsullied  and 
a  reasonable  stretch  of  life  for  the  work  you  were  born 
to  do.  Or  you  may  address  envelopes  from  six  to  six, 
keeping  the  night  for  the  masterpiece,  though  I  am 
told  this  is  bad  for  the  health.  Yet  another  way  is  to 
carry  coals,  or  lay  drains,  till  the  week's  pittance  is 
assured.  In  my  own  case  I  reversed  the  process  and 
did  my  good  work  first,  but  it  is  true  that  I  had  a 
capital  of  between  seventeen  and  eighteen  thousand 
pounds.  I  have  written  of  the  sovereign  influence  of 
health ;  I  was  wrong.  Health  is  important,  but  you  can 
manage  with  a  modicum  of  it.  Wealth  is  all  that 
matters.  I  am  amused  to  read  in  naturalistic  novels 
the  most  intimate  particularities  of  the  hero's  vices, 
manners,  ways  of  eating,  drinking  and  loving,  but  no 
mention  of  his  income.  Your  true  realist  is  he  who 
will  give  you  not  only  the  grandest  and  the  meanest  sen- 


42  INTRODUCTION 

timents  of  which  his  characters  are  capable,  but  also 
the  exact  fortune  and  how  secured  which  will  permit 
them  the  leisure  for  their  philosophic  airings.  He  will 
keep  accounts  for  his  personages.  lie  will  not  send  a 
younger  son  to  the  Colonics  without  putting  money  in 
his  purse,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  tin-  fare.  He  will 
indicate  in  what  way  the  impending  bankrupt  is  to 
stave  off  final  disaster,  precising  exactly  where  the 
ready  money,  that  most  crucial  factor,  cornea  from. 
He  will  instruct  the  novice  in  the  ticklish  game  as  to 
how,  having  divested  himself  of  all  his  worldly  goods 
even  to  the  classic  gold  hunter  and  Albert  chain,  he  may 
expect  to  live  through  the  interminable  days  of  the 
law's  firking  and  ferreting.  Tn  any  strictly  non-Gil- 
bertian  country  the  maintenance  of  bankrupts  under  ex- 
amination would  bo  a  charge  upon  the  State,  instead  of 
which  we  tacitly  assume  them  to  kei  |»  breath  going 
upon  the  secret  stores  of  which  it  is  a  criminal  o 
to  have  made  provision.  Let  me  say  that  I  have  never 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Official  Receiver  outside 
the  columns  of  the  newspaper.  1  have  always  enjoyed 
a  fair,   even  good  income.      To-day  T   still   p  my 

seventeen  or  eighteen  thousand  pounds  and  all  that  the 
Pig-Pig!  series  brought  me  in.  I  thank  God  for  my 
son's  sake. 

viii 

Sister  is  uneasy  about  my  writing. 

"Here,  you,"  she  said  one  day.  "you're  always  scrib- 
bling. Can't  you  leave  it  alone  and  do  a  bit  of  read- 
ing instead.  Here's  something  for  you  to  look  at" 
Whereupon  she  put  into  my  hand  a  copy  of  a  journal 
which  is  accustomed  to  print  weekly  for  the  benefit  of 
such  classes  as  acknowledge  themselves  as  "lower"  six- 


INTRODUCTION  43 

teen  pages  of  the  wit  and  tales  of  our  grandfathers. 
All  for  the  war-time  price  of  three-halfpence.  How 
do  they  manage  it  one  asks  wearily,  and  as  wearily 
makes  a  guess  at  the  advertisements.  Let  me  repro- 
duce one  which  has  given  me  the  genuine  thrill,  the 
thrill  that  none  but  your  true  enormity  affords. 

Here  faintness  overtakes  me.  What  if  this  treasur'd 
splendour  and  holy  grail,  this  collector's  jimp  inanity 
be  appraised  too  carelessly  by  the  taster  in  these  trifles  ? 
I  am  sure  of  my  bouquet,  but  would  bo  sure  of  the 
critical  nose.  Ineffably  "the  goods,"  the  thing  since 
Sister  put  it  into  my  hands  haunts  me,  is  become  an 
obsession.  Choice  and  fascinating  excerpt  .  .  .  mes- 
meric rhythm  .  .  .  Milton's  masterpiece.  ...  I 
have  not  been  so  thrilled  since  the  day  I  saw  in  an 
undertaker's  window  the  promise — Pinking  Done.  I 
will  be  faint  no  longer.  Roses  have  thorns  and  silver 
fountains  mud,  says  the  poet,  but  I  say  that  canker  is 
undiscoverable  in  the  sweet  bud  of  this  my  beauty's 
rose.    Let  loveliness  speak  for  herself. 


CHAPTER   I 


AND  now  at  length  I  am  come  to  my  uncle. 
The  reader  would  have  been  afforded  earlier 
acquaintance  with  this  personage  had  it  not 
been  for  the  pains  I  have  been  at  to  find  the  word  that 
shall  fit  him.  I  wanted  something  at  once  grotesque 
and  sinister,  something  that  would  bring  to  the  mind 
Pantagruel  and  our  modern  buffoon.  Loon,  pantaloon 
— the  termination  wsfs  found  but  not  the  body.  That 
was  to  be  dwarfish,  having  to  do  with  bottle-imps,  - 
djinns  and  leprechauns  in  so  far  as  these  little  people 
are  malevolent.  Enormity,  in  the  social  sense,  had  to 
be  implied.  The  word  existed  in  the  French  and  only 
my  natural  objection  to  sponging  on  the  foreigner  pre- 
vented me  from  hurling  it  at  the  reader  at  the  outset. 
Peacocking  in  alien  feathers  is  always  displeasing,  par- 
donable only  when  native  plumes  are  inadequate — to 
taste  the  full  measure  of  offensiveness  you  have  only  to 
read  any  Frenchman  presuming  to  borrow  from  us.  I 
hope  I  shall  never  use  a  foreign  word  where  there  is 
an  English  equivalent;  but  that  equivalent  lacking  I 
account  myself  entitled  to  ransack  the  Chinese,  the 
Tartar,  the  Caribbean  and  whatever  tongues  are  spoken 
on  Roast  Beef  and  Plum  Pudding  Islands.  I  should 
think  nothing  of  inventing  a  language  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  quoting  from  it. 

And  now,  reader,  let  me  present  to  you  the  little 
word  cocasse.    It  is  a  word  of  breeding.    Says  Beranger : 

44 


RESPONSIBILITY  45 

Pierrots  et  paillasses 
Beaux  esprits  cocasses 
Charment  sur  les  places 
Le  peuple  ebahi. 

It  is  an  accommodating  word  and  well  describes  my 
last  chapter.  Confess  that  you  did  not  quite  grasp  the 
appositeness  of  that  musical  interlude.  'Twas  a  stroke 
of  cunning  to  prepare  you  for  my  uncle  and  for  the 
word  which  should  describe  him. 

It  is  time  for  me  to  be  a  little  more  precise.  Reuben 
Ackroyd,  my  mother's  brother,  was  for  fifty  years  the 
leading  citizen  of  Crawley  Bridge.  His  cotton  mill 
it  was  which  had  built  up  the  prosperity  of  the  little 
town  on  the  borders  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire.  Head 
of  the  firm  of  Ackroyd  and  Marston  of  Crawley  Bridge 
Mill — "Ackroyd's"  was  the  name  it  went  by  in  the 
town,  which  in  turn  was  always  called  "The  Bridge" 
— the  old  spider  sat  in  his  Manchester  office  and  spun 
a  web  which  included  Stockport,  Oldham,  Blackburn, 
Bury,  and  other  minor  towns  of  the  county.  His  ma- 
chinations were  concerned  with  nothing  more  sinister 
than  cotton  piece  goods.  Ackroyd  and  Marston' s  Craw- 
ley Shirting  is  still  a  name  to  conjure  with  in  Calcutta, 
to  impress  the  rasta  of  Buenos  Ayres,  to  stir  China 
from  her  sleep  of  ages.  It  was  an  honest  cloth.  But 
it  is  to  be  admitted  that  besides  the  Crawley  shirting, 
Ackroyd  and  Marston  manufactured  velveteens  in 
which  there  was  no  velvet,  sateens  devoid  of  satin,  and 
flannelettes  innocent  of  wool.  But  since  all  these  de- 
ceptions were  "patent  to  the  meanest  intelligence" — 
a  favourite  phrase  with  my  uncle — the  trade  may  be 
considered  susceptible  of  a  normal  commercial  honesty. 
I  have  in  my  possession  a  copy  of  the  pamphlet  in 
which  Reuben  warned  the  mothers  of  England  of  the 


46  RESPONSIBILITY 

highly  inflammable  nature  of  cotton  flannelettes  and  the 
danger  to  which  were  exposed  such  of  their  darlings 
as  were  "knickered  and  nightied" — he  sat  up  a  whole 
night  over  the  phrase1 — in  the  treacherous  stuff.  The 
final  paragraph  contained  a  warranty  that  all  Ackroyd 
and  Marston's  flannelettes  were  subjected  to  a  process 
rendering  them  fireproof  to  a  superlative  degree.  The 
whole  rounded  off  with  a  clever  drawing,  showing  a 
six-year-old  innocent  applying  a  match  to  her  frock, 
with  the  text:  it  won't  light. 

A  gaunt,  twisted  man  my  uncle  must  have  been, 
stripped  for  the  last  voyage.  But  it  is  not  decent  to 
spy  upon  people  so,  and  the  world  is  right  to  take  us 
at  the  more  charitable  estimate  of  our  chosen  wrappings. 
Let  me  describe  him  in  his  normal  garb,  that  outward 
husk  which  for  a  generation  imposed  upon  the  whole 
world  with  the  exception  of  half-a-dozen  confidential 
employees.  My  uncle  affected  a  hard  hat  with  a 
square  top  bulging  slightly  at  the  crown  as  though  in 
sympathy  with  the  dome  beneath.  This  bulge  held  the 
faintest  suggestion  of  the  Established  Church,  which 
was  quickly  corrected  by  the  brim,  puritan  and  friendly 
in  the  technical  sense.  The  wings  of  the  collar  were 
spread  wide  as  charity.  Beneath  them  a  cravat  broad  as 
the  wearer's  convictions  but  tied  as  tightly  as  his 
purse-strings  on  anonymous  occasions ;  in  the  cravat  an 
enormous  single  diamond  of  the  first  water,  symbolical 
of  the  purity  of  its  wearer's  intentions.  The  sober  coat 
was  a  compromise  between  the  dignity  of  the  cere- 
monial garment  and  the  workman's  blouse;  I  am  worn, 
it  seemed  to  say,  by  a  labourer  worthy  of  his  hire. 
The  waistcoat  was  unremarkable  save  that  it  was  tight- 
stretched  over  protuberance,  a  paunch  lacking  to  the 
discerning  the  generosity  of  true  ventripotence.     He 


RESPONSIBILITY  47 

had  no  joy  in  his  stomach.  Never  could  it  have 
grown  from  the  joyous  little  skinful,  tight  as  a  drum, 
in  which  young  Tom  Brown  stowed  away  kidneys  and 
coffee,  nor  yet  from  the  rice-stuffed  abundance  of 
the  little  fellow  in  the  plate  illustrative  of  the  Croco- 
dile in  Cuvier's  Natural  History.  Rather  did  my 
uncle  seem  to  view  it  as  an  inculpatory  index  to  greed. 
To  me  it  was  always  a  hard,  round  nodule  of  rapacity. 
Brother  merchants,  his  contemporaries,  were  wont  in 
summer-time  to  array  themselves  in  waistcoats  of  light 
hue  and  texture.  Not  so  Reuben.  He  would  not 
"bedizen"  himself  nor  allow  his  employees  to  be  so 
bedizened.  "We  are  here  for  a  Purpose,"  he  would 
say,  speaking  in  capitals,  "and  that  Purpose  is  not, 
advanced  by  Unseemliness  in  Dress.  We  are  not  go- 
ing BOATING,"  he  would  explode.  "Business  is 
Business  and  Boating  is  Boating.  We  have  to  guide 
our  Bark  down  the  Stream  of  Commerce  till  we  reach 
the  Shore  of  Independence,  and  then  we  may  Guy 
ourselves  each  according  to  his  Taste  and  Fancy."  My 
uncle's  trousers  were  shapeless,  cylindrical  affairs  hang- 
ing in  multiple  folds  over  stout,  well-made  boots.  Never 
did  I  see  him — here,  reader,  is  the  note  of  the  cocasse — 
without  a  flower  carried  as  soon  as  the  contrivance 
was  invented  in  a  little  tin  water-bottle  fitting  into 
the  buttonhole.  He  would  bestow  these  roses  of  his 
own  growing  with  a  lavish  hand ;  in  the  first  instance 
upon  the  hospital  where  was  the  Ackroyd  ward,  next 
upon  his  workpeople,  more  particularly  upon  any  em- 
ployee who  had  been  refused  a  rise  of  wages.  We  bring 
proof,  the  red  and  yellow  blooms  implied,  of  our  mas- 
ter's regret  in  not  being  able  to  see  his  way — oh  classic 
formula! — to  grant  your  moderate  request;  are  we  not 
evidence  that,  frankly,  he  bears  his  petitioners  no  ill- 


48  RESPONSIBILITY 

will.  Fine  Saturdays  would  see  old  Reuben  at  the 
county  cricket  ground,  surmounted  by  an  incredible 
circlet  of  straw,  a  jovial  old  dog  glad  to  let  others  have 
their  day.  From  May  to  October  he  was  effulgent, 
genial,  and  on  occasion  lenient  with  slow-paying  cus- 
tomers ;  with  the  first  chill  the  whole  man  retired  within 
the  folds  of  his  tight-buttoned  ulster,  and  something 
crab-like  crept  into  his  walk. 

I  find  that  I  have  described  the  clothes  rather  than 
the  man,  and  this  largely  because  clothes  are  unchang- 
ing whereas  man  cannot  defy  Time  for  ever.  And  yet, 
except  that  my  uncle's  hair  grew  whiter  and  his  figure 
more  bent,  and  that  he  wore  a  deeper  air  of  intimacy 
with  the  ultimate  purpose  of  Almighty  God,  I  cannot 
recall  that  his  aspect  ever  underwent  any  real  change. 
He  was  slightly  over  the  middle  height  and  possessed  a 
brow  which,  on  public  platforms  and  with  top-lighting, 
veered  to  nobility.  He  always  seemed  to  me — I  am  no 
politician — the  typical  free  trader,  'cute,  canny  and 
close-fisted.  His  glowing  periods  were  those  Cobden 
could  make  impressive,  and  he  was  never  tired  of 
reiterating  the  old  tag  about  riches  consisting  not  in 
the  multitude  of  man's  possessions  but  in  the  fewness 
of  his  wants.  When  giving  vent  to  a  well-chosen  senti- 
ment he  was  exactly  like  any  one  of  the  fifty  or  sixty 
benevolent  old  buffers  who  appear  to  have  mitigated 
the  rigours  of  the  cotton  famine  by  sitting  for  their 
portraits  round  an  oak  table.  Yet  there  were  times 
when  his  features  in  repose  assumed  an  expression 
veritably  hang-dog.  His  nose,  broad  enough  at  the 
base  to  support  gold  spectacles,  sharpened  to  meanness 
at  the  end ;  the  mouth  one  instinctively  felt  to  be  cruel 
and  the  chin  weak,  although  both  were  screened  by  a 
straggling,  undecided  beard.     He  had  a  curious  trick 


RESPONSIBILITY  49 

of  speaking  out  of  the  left  half  of  his  mouth,  the  under- 
lip  drooping  to  let  forth  such  speech  as  might  he  con- 
sidered non-committal  and  then  going  hack  with  a  snap. 

His  word  was  as  good  as  his  bond,  hut  it  was  his 
invariahle  practice  after  having  given  a  verhal  under- 
taking to  reduce  that  undertaking  to  writing,  and  many 
people  were  surprised  at  the  astonishing  wealth  of  con- 
tingencies, forfeits  and  alternative  interpretations  a 
simple  yea  or  nay  may  he  presumed  to  give  rise  to. 
These  written  engagements,  drawn  up  in  his  neat,  pre- 
cise handwriting,  were  to  him  aesthetic  achievements 
and  matter  for  artistic  pride.  He  would  safeguard  the 
interests  of  the  second  party  to  the  treaty  with  great 
elaboration,  setting  out  innumerable  pains  and  penalties 
to  which  in  no  case  could  that  unfortunate  person  have 
been  exposed ;  and  when  trouble  arose  it  was  invariably 
found  to  hang  upon  the  interpretation  of  some  trifling 
accident  of  phrasing,  a  misplaced  "and"  or  ill-consid- 
ered "but."  I  have  marvelled  for  hours  together  over 
the  skill  and  cunning  of  these  booby-traps.  To  this  day 
I  am  not  sure  how  far  they  were  deliberate  schemes 
to  involve  less  subtle  intelligences,  or  how  far  they  may 
have  been  the  expression  of  an  idea  of  truth  as  tortured 
and  intricate  as  the  late  Mr  Gladstone's  oratorical  ex- 
positions of  that  virtue.  My  uncle  looked  well  on  the 
Bench  and  carried  many  a  Company  Meeting  by  his 
impressive  silences. 

You  are  to  hear  of  him  at  considerable  length  in  the 
following  pages,  for  although  my  story  has  no  hero  it  is 
not  without  a  villain.  And  yet  I  am  not  sure  that 
villain's  the  word.  He  was  a  devoted  husband  and  an 
admirable  father,  though  I  do  not  know  to  what  viola- 
tions a  dividend  warrant  might  not  have  tempted  him. 
Though  I  have  seen  him  play  at  ride-a-cock-horse  with 


50  RESPONSIBILITY 

his  children  I  swear  that  for  a  director's  fee  he  would 
have  fumbled  in  the  breasts  of  virgins.  Meet  it  is  I  set 
it  down  that  a  man  may  be  an  excellent  father  and  yet 
a  villain.  At  least  I'm  sure  it  was  so  at  Crawley 
Bridge.  He  was  an  admirable  host  and  could  sing  a 
good  song,  llany's  the  New  Year's  Eve  I  have  sat  with 
him  and  his  family  munching  chestnuts  round  the  fire. 
Then,  holding  up  a  glass  of  port,  would  he  set  us 
singing  A  Boat,  a  Boat,  and  to  the  Ferry,  or  London 
Bridge  is  Falling  Down,  and  as  midnight  drew  near 
lead  off  John  Browns  Body  with  immense  gusto  and 
hilarity.  To  behold  his  cheerful  countenance  and  to 
hear  his  strong,  steady  voice  you  would  swear  him  in- 
capable of  making  a  poor  wretch  bankrupt,  whereas 
this  was  a  thing  he  always  did  with  a  chuckle.  He 
seemed  to  derive  a  moral  satisfaction  almost  amount- 
ing to  physical  well-being  from  the  misfortunes  of 
others.  He  was  a  problem  of  which  I  could  never 
quite  fit  the  pieces  together,  a  problem  in  terms  of  the 
cocasse. 

Cocasse,  cocasse — how  well  you  look  in  your  English 
dress  and  how  splendidly  you  fit  the  English  tempera- 
ment.   I  expect  henceforth  to  see  you  in  daily  use. 

The  ambitious  cleric  who  "receives  a  call"  to  a 
wealthier  cure  and  offers  up  sham  prayers  for  guidance 
is  cocasse. 

A  brewer  who  should  vote  in  favour  of  a  prohibi- 
tionist bill  is  cocasse. 

A  brewer  who  should  vote  against  the  bill  from  con- 
viction is  cocasse. 

The  supposition  of  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance  and 
a  few  doddering  bishops  that  the  soldiers  will  be  con- 
tent to  come  home  to  a  "dry"  England  is  cocasse. 

Cocasse !    Cocasse ! 


RESPONSIBILITY  51 

My  own  life  has  not  been  lacking  in  the  quality. 
Did  not  my  best  labours,  the  books  into  which  I  put 
heart  and  brain,  peter  out  in  mere  vexation?  It  was 
not  so  much  fame  that  I  wanted — fame  being  largely  a 
matter  of  luck,  of  one's  name  being  easily  pronounce- 
able, of  titles  catching  on  over  the  tea-cups  of  the 
upper  ten,  of  a  hundred  incalculable  little  ignominies. 
It  was  not  fame  I  wanted,  but  appreciation  by  the 
few  picked  spirits.  Well,  I  failed.  But  I  had  only 
to  put  my  tongue  in  my  cheek  and  ladle  out  ribaldry 
to  be  lapped  up  greedily  and  besought  for  more. 

All  my  life  I  have  had  more  than  bowing  acquaint- 
ance with  the  cocasse. 

§ii 

Let  me  begin  at  the  beginning. 

All  that  remains  to  me  of  my  childhood  is  the  sharp- 
est recollection  of  the  feel  and  taste  and  smell  of 
things;  very  little  as  to  whether  people  were  kind  to 
me  or  whether  I  liked  them  or  not.  I  remember  the 
japanned  blue  of  my  cot-sides  cut  out  in  constellations 
the  way  I  would  fit  my  fingers  into  the  stars,  the  feel  of 
the  imprint  on  the  tips.  I  remember  the  noise  the 
side  would  make  when  I  bulged  it  out  with  my  knee 
and  released  it  sharply,  the  taste  of  the  brass  knobs 
at  the  corners,  the  number  of  turn3  it  took  to  unscrew 
them.  Familiar  still  the  scent  of  the  shelves  in  my 
mother's  store-cupboard,  the  leathery  atmosphere  of 
the  piled  box-room.  I  have  all  the  old  distaste  for 
certain  little  pairs  of  cream  socks  and  the  new-washed 
discomfort  of  them,  and  for  tying  the  black  silk  scarves 
of  sailor  suits.  I  know  exactly  how  paving-stones 
smell  when  one  is  less  than  three  feet  tall,  and  can 
feel  again  the  knee-deep  thresh  and  churn  of  leaves  in 


52  RESPONSIBILITY 

a  hollow.  The  rain  spinning  pennies  in  the  street  still 
invites  me  to  flatten  a  snub  nose  against  the  pane, 
and  I  can  feel  on  each  cheek  the  press  of  the  window's 
safety  Lars.  I  know  that  when  there  is  a  great  lowing 
of  cattle  in  the  early  hours  it  must  be  Wednesday 
morning  and  market-day.  I  still  find  it  a  terrible  thing 
to  be  left  alone  in  a  garden  after  dusk ;  romantic  and 
thrilling  to  light  the  gas  at  nine  in  the  morning  on 
days  of  fog;  and  there  is  no  tale  written  which  can 
vie  with  the  glamour  of  falling  snow.  I  still  find 
heaven  in  the  scent  of  farm-house  sheets  and  the  glim- 
mer of  a  lattice,  whilst  to  come  back  after  summer 
holidays  to  new  carpets  and  new  paint  is  to  explore  para- 
dise anew.  There  is  a  grown-up  theory  which  would 
derive  the  sensation  of  falling  in  sleep  from  the  insecur- 
ity of  legendary  ancestors  dwelling  in  tree-tops.  In 
my  maturer  sleep  I  never  fall;  I  am  being  carried 
out  of  a  steaming  bathroom  up  flights  of  stairs  with 
my  head  wrapped  in  a  Paisley  shawl  and  Dame  Mar- 
gery's voice  declaring  that  I  get  heavier  every  day. 
Her  real  name  was  Margaret,  but  "Dame  Margery" 
was,  of  course,  inevitable. 

Of  my  mother  I  recall  little  save  the  texture,  colour 
and  pattern  of  her  dresses.  I  remember  the  visitors 
used  to  call  her  "your  pretty  mother,"  and  I  suppose 
that  she  must  have  been  beautiful.  But  I  took  her 
beauty  for  granted  in  the  same  way  that  I  accepted 
the  grandeur  of  an  enormous  gown  of  maroon  silk 
flounced  with  ivory  lace  in  which  she  went  to  parties. 
On  these  occasions  she  would  wear  white  flowers  in 
her  beautiful  hair,  gold  chain  and  locket,  and  on  each 
arm  a  thick  gold  bracelet,  one  fastening  with  an  ad- 
mirable snap,  the  other  with  less  severity.  On  her 
handkerchief  I  was  allowed  to  pour  a  few  drops — oh 


RESPONSIBILITY  53 

very,  very  few — of  a  scent  called  White  Rose.  The 
other  perfumes  of  the  period — Opoponax,  Ylang-Ylang, 
Ess  Bouquet,  dear,  delightful  names — I  saw  only  in 
shop  windows.  They  were,  my  mother  used  to  declare, 
"actressy."  I  dare  not  imagine  what  she  would  have 
thought  of  our  latter-day  lures — Pluie  d'Or,  Hantise, 
Infinite.  "Would  she  have  marched  with  the  times? 
I  think  not;  I  hope  not.  I  was  admitted  into  all  the 
secrets  of  her  dressing-table,  innocent,  obvious,  motherly 
secrets  having  no  greater  matter  for  disclosure  than 
two  long  tresses  of  hair  slightly  lighter  in  colour  which 
Dame  Margery,  who  had  once  been  her  nurse  and  was 
now  mine,  used  to  fasten  to  the  drawer-knob  and  plait 
and  replait.  My  mother's  cheeks  had  all  the  glow  of 
happiness. 

"There's  no  recipe  for  a  clear  skin  like  a  clear  con- 
science," the  old  woman  would  crv  with  privileged 
freedom. 

Then  my  mother  would  ask:  "Will  I  do,  Nurse?" 
and  Margery  would  give  a  touch  here  and  a  pat  there 
and  send  her  downstairs  with  a  blessing  and  a  hundred 
recommendations  as  to  shawls  and  wrappings,  and  I 
to  trot  after  her  in  charge  of  fan  and  gloves  to  which 
clung  the  delicate  odour  of  the  cedar-wood  box  in 
which  she  stored  them,  and  to  usher  her  and  my  father 
into  a  yellow,  plush-lined  cab.  Respectfully  the  driver 
would  touch  his  hat  and  say : 

"Grows  a  'and  bigger  every  time  I  sees  'im,  does 
Mas'r  Edward." 

The  closing  of  the  door  would  fill  the  house  with  un- 
utterable loneliness ;  I  can  describe  it  in  no  other  way. 
My  mother  in  her  party  clothes  was  the  proudest  and 
most  beautiful  sight  my  childish  eyes  had  ever  beheld, 
and  time  has  not  effaced  the  radiant  vision. 


54  RESPONSIBILITY 

Then  with  many  promises  of  secrecy  would  Margery 
make  coffee  and  crisply  toast  and  richly  butter  a  tea- 
cake  of  her  own  baking,  and  I  would  sit  up  until  past 
ten  o'clock  and  turn  over  the  pictures  in  David  Copper- 
field,  which  even  at  that  early  age  I  decided  was  the 
most  beautiful  book  ever  written.  Or  Dame  Margery 
would  read  aloud  from  Queechy  and  The  Lamplighter 
and  make  my  childish  heart  knock  at  the  ribs  with, 
that  page  from  Lillians  Golden  Hours  in  which  the 
skeleton  is  found  in  the  dungeon.  I  had  a  liking  too 
for  a  story  called  Won  by  Gentleness,  which  opened 
with  a  baronet  called  Sir  Gervase — what  better  name 
for  a  hero? — dragged  at  his  horse's  stirrup.  All  that 
is  nearly  forty  years  ago,  but  there  are  times  when  I 
can  still  feel  the  bump  of  Sir  Gervase's  head  upon  the 
stones. 

I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  tell  here  of  how  old 
Margery  entered  into  the  service  of  my  family.  My 
maternal  grandparents  had  been,  to  look  upon,  as  ill- 
assorted  a  pair  as  you  would  find  in  a  day's  march; 
he  a  bluff,  cattle-dealing,  northern  farmer,  she  the 
primmest,  littlest  and  most  exquisite  old  lady  that  was 
ever  modelled  in  china.  A  poor  country  girl  proposed 
herself  as  maid  and  was  accepted. 

"You  may  bring  your  box,  girl,"  said  my  grand- 
mother, adding:  "Of  course,  you  understand  that  no 
followers  are  allowed." 

Whereupon  the  girl  burst  into  tears  and  made  stam- 
mering confession.  She  had,  it  seemed,  been  turned 
away  from  home  and  was  without  shelter.  My  grand- 
mother, who  had  never  known  discomfiture  and  who 
never  went  back  on  a  decision,  rapped  out  tartly: 

"Dry  your  eyes,  girl.     If  you  must  have  a  baby, 


RESPONSIBILITY  55 

you  may  as  well  have  it  here.  That  sort  of  thing  can't 
go  on  in  the  streets." 

The  news  broken  to  my  grandfather,  the  old  gentle- 
man slapped  his  thigh  and  roared: 

"Good  for  you,  old  lady !  The  wench  shall  have  her 
child,  damned  if  she  shan't,  and  a  fine  child  too !" 

And  so  young  Margery  stayed  and  became  old  Mar- 
gery, and  wore  a  wedding  ring  and  was  called  Mrs 
Bent-ham,  and  lived  and  died  in  the  service  of  my  family 
universally  loved  and  respected.  Her  child  is  now  a 
prosperous  furniture  dealer  in  Bristol.  I  give  the  story 
as  illustrative  of  the  stuff  of  which  my  mother's  family 
was  made.  I  must ,  presume  this  to  include  my  Uncle 
Reuben,  though  for  the  life  of  me  I  have  never  been 
able  to  see  how  he  and  my  mother  came  to  be  brother 
and  sister.  I  do  not  deny  that  my  uncle  would  have 
acted  in  the  same  way;  I  think  he  was  always  piqued 
that  no  such  opportunity  for  gratuitous  display  of 
generosity  ever  befell  him.  In  his  heart  he  cared  little 
or  nothing  for  the  proprieties,  and  the  incident  would 
have  enabled  him  to  lay  up  a  prodigious  capital  in  the 
way  of  a  reputation  for  broad-mindedness. 

Other  recollections  I  have  of  my  mother,  but  they 
are  chiefly  bound  up  with  her  dresses.  I  seem  to  see  her 
at  a  garden-party  at  which  she  prettily  holds  a  lawn- 
tennis  racquet  of  old-fashioned  shape.  She  wears  a 
fawn-coloured  frock  with  a  short  train  and  plum- 
coloured  panels  made  out  of  little  squares  of  velvet  de- 
fined by  gold  braid.  Roses  cluster  about  her  hat,  and 
her  shoulders  have  the  pretty  droop  I  know  so  well. 
She  looks  so  very  like  the  picture  of  a  fashionable 
beauty  of  the  period  strolling  elegantly  about  some 
royal  lawn. 


56  RESPONSIBILITY 


m 


I  have  a  curious  faculty  amounting  almost  to  the 
hypnotic  for  remembering  people  by  their  hands.  One 
of  my  earliest  recollections  is  that  of  walking  behind  a 
labourer  on  our  way  from  chapel — we  are  a  Dissenting 
family — on  an  Easter  Sunday  morning.  I  know  it  was 
Easter  Sunday  because  the  working  man  of  those  days 
was  wont  to  celebrate  that  festival  and  the  advent  of 
spring  with  new  creaking  boots  and  trousers  of  bright 
puce.  My  mother  held  that  new  clothes  should  blazen 
forth  on  any  other  Sunday,  but  that  though  we  might 
not  dress  more  magnificently  we  might  be  allowed  to 
eat  more  expensively.  Lamb  and  a  dish  of  asparagus 
were  de  rigueur  on  that  day,  afterwards  to  be  banished 
from  our  table  until  Whit-Sunday  when  they  re- 
appeared at  my  uncle's  board  with  the  addition  of  new 
potatoes  and  green  peas.  Our  guests  at  Easter  were 
always  the  same — my  uncle  and  his  family,  the  minister 
and  his  wife,  and  whoever  happened  to  be  the  chairman 
of  the  chapel  committee  with  his  lady.  A  singular 
procession  we  must  have  made.  Consider  the  Rev. 
and  Mrs  Steepleton,  he  sheepishly  null  but  of  good 
intent,  she  a  fussy,  unpretending  little  body.  They 
supported  life  and  four  ailing  children  on  a  stipend 
— I  forget  at  this  distance  of  time  the  canting  word 
with  which  we  cloaked  the  beggarliness  of  the  sum — 
of  one  hundred  and  ten  pounds  a  year.  It  was  an 
understood  thing  that  for  this  wage  the  parson  should 
edify  his  congregation  twice  every  Sunday  throughout 
the  year  with  three  weeks'  holiday  in  August;  and  it 
was  an  equally  understood  thing  that  the  middling  fel- 
low should  exact  respect  from  such  of  his  flock  as 
possessed  less  of  the  world's  goods  than  he,  and  show 


RESPONSIBILITY  57 

proper  recognition  of  those  social  gulfs  which  separated 
him  from  the  wealthier  of  his  congregation.  I  remem- 
ber conceiving  the  impression  that  the  Steepletons 
must  be  always  hungry  and  that  when  they  dined  with 
us  true  politeness  consisted  in  pressing  quantities  of 
food  upon  them.  As  the  eldest  of  their  four  children 
was  under  seven  years  of  age  and  as  they  obviously 
could  not  afford  the  meanest  maid  that  chares,  I  often 
wondered  how,  on  the  occasions  when  they  came  straight 
to  us  from  chapel,  the  little  ones  fared  for  dinner.  I 
think  now  that  probably  they  did  not  dine.  Damnable 
are  the  straits  to  which  the  poor  Dissenting  minister 
is  driven;  damnable  that  he  should  be  expected  to 
give  out  the  breath  of  life  when  he  has  all  the  trouble 
in  the  world  to  keep  it  in.  Trollope's  poor  curate  is 
no  figment  of  the  imagination;  Hogglestock's  pathetic 
page  is  sufficient  title  to  enduring  fame.  But  to  go 
back  to  our  stragglesome  procession. 

We  paired  as  follows: — My  uncle  with  the  parson's 
wife,  my  father  with  my  aunt.  Next  the  Rev.  Steeple- 
ton  with  the  wife  of  the  chairman — a  master-plumber's 
lady.  Behind  them  the  master-plumber  with  my 
mother,  and  finally  my  two  cousins  and  myself.  I 
remember  holding  Monica's  shy  little  fist,  my  gaze 
fixed  on  the  master-plumber's  hands  clasped  behind 
his  back,  the  palms  yellow,  horny,  ineradicably  lined 
and  exuding  a  natural  grease. 

I  trace  my  uncle's  long-standing  animosity  towards 
me  to  that  Sunday  and  a  boy's  tactless  knack  of  in- 
sisting upon  truth.  At  dessert  he  pulled  out  of  his 
pocket  and  held  at  arm's-length  one  of  those  fascinating 
objects,  a  newly  minted  crown  piece. 

"Tell  Uncle  Reuben  what  you  think  of  him,"  he 


58  RESPONSIBILITY 

said.  "Speak  the  truth,  lad,  and  we'll  see  whether  it 
is  worth  five  shillings." 

"I  like  you,  Uncle,"  I  replied,  "all  but  your  hands," 
which  were  indeed  shapely  and  well  kept,  but  cruel 
like  the  claws  of  a  bird. 

I  can  see  again  the  shining  forehead  grow  red  and  the 
pendent  and  amiably  disposed  underlip  go  back  with 
a  snap.  I  can  see  my  mother's  beautiful  hand  go  up 
to  her  bosom — she  was  always  afraid  of  her  brother — 
and  hear  my  father's  flurried  apology,  the  chairman's 
hearty  "That's  one  for  Mr  Reuben!"  and  his  wife's 
"The  boy  didn't  mean  no  'arm,  did  you,  luv?"  My 
uncle's  brow  was  now  as  black  as  thunder  and  he  put 
the  five-shilling  piece  back  into  his  pocket.  Little 
Monica  gave  my  hand  a  squeeze  under  the  table  and 
on  the  other  side  of  me  her  uncouth  brother,  whom 
I  already  instinctively  disliked,  began  to  whistle.  I 
remember  the  Rev.  Steepleton  striving  for  something 
tactful  to  say,  and  how  the  table,  unable  to  wait  until 
inspiration  should  descend,  broke  up  in  disorder. 
Shortly  afterwards  my  uncle,  still  in  the  highest  pos- 
sible dudgeon,  withdrew  his  family  and  that  year's 
Easter  Sunday  came  to  an  end. 

"You  shouldn't  have  said  that,  Neddy,"  was  my 
father's  gentle  reproof.  "It  was  very  rude.  You 
must  always  be  careful  what  you  say  to  Uncle  Reuben. 
He  never  forgets  when  little  boys  are  not  polite." 

"Reuben  never  forgives,"  said  my  mother.  "I  wish 
we  had  made  Neddy  apologise." 

"I  wouldn't  have  apologised,"  I  replied  hotly.  "He 
told  me  to  speak  the  truth  and  I  spoke  the  truth.  I 
like  Uncle  Reuben,  but  I  don't  like  his  hands.  They're 
cruel." 

"It's  sometimes  better  not  to  tell  the  whole  truth,  as 


RESPONSIBILITY  59 

you'll  find  out  when  you  are  a  bit  older,"  said  my  father. 
"Of  course,  you  must  never  tell  a  lie." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  put  such  ideas  into  the  boy's 
head,"  said  my  mother. 

This  little  thing  it  was  which,  I  verily  believe,  in- 
spired my  uncle's  lifelong  enmity. 

I  remember  the  broken,  bitten  nails  of  my  first  school- 
master, the  way  my  hands  were  bruised  by  the  school 
bully — some  very  creditable  torture  can  be  accomplished 
by  passing  a  lead-pencil  over  the  middle  finger  and 
under  the  first  and  third  and  pressing  hard — the  marks 
my  watch-chain  made  on  the  wrists  of  young  Peters 
when  I  got  big  enough  to  bully  in  my  turn,  the  grimy 
thumb  of  the  tram-guard  when  he  gave  me  my  ticket 
on  the  way  to  school.  I  remember  Monica's  hot,  grubby 
little  paw,  and  clearest  of  all  the  stain  of  oil  from  the 
loom  on  the  forefinger  of  little  Amy  Dewhurst,  my  first 
love. 


IV 


There  are  only  two  fetes  in  the  year  for  the  right- 
thinking  child,  Christmas  and  the  summer  holiday. 
The  first  brings  parents  into  touch  with  the  mystical 
world  which  is  the  child's  normal  abiding-place.  It 
is  the  elders  who,  when  the  time  draws  near  the  birth 
of  Christ,  are  brought  to  a  proper  sense  of  the  shadows 
that  they  are — pagan  shadows  too  with  their  holly 
and  mistletoe,  their  jewelled  crackers  and  Christmas 
numbers,  their  thousands  of  slaughtered  animals.  And 
then  the  hoardings  gay  for  mature  consumption  with 
their  burning  legends  of  Gorgeous  Pantomimes,  Daz- 
zling Spectacles,  Stupendous  Success.  At  one  theatre 
you  are  to  elect  for  Exquisite  Scenery  and  Brilliant 


60  RESPONSIBILITY 

Costumes,  at  another  for  Fun  Faster  and  Furiouser 
than  Ever  Before. 

And  if  your  father  is  awfully  rich 

He  will  take  you  to  both,  or  else  he  will  not, 

I  cannot  be  positive  which, 

as  Mr  Belloc  might  have  said.  For  me  as  a  child  there 
was  no  torment  so  exquisite  as  the  choice  between  two 
pantomimes,  it  being  in  those  days  an  unheard-of  thing 
for  a  properly  brought-!1  p  child  to  be  taken  to  more 
than  one.  What  stabs  of  agony  when  you  had  made 
your  choice  and  were  finally  there,  and  first  a  quarter 
of  the  wonderful  night  and  then  half  began  to  slip  all 
too  relentlessly  away.  And  the  last  hour  of  that  earthly 
paradise  when,  like  a  wise  man  nearing  his  last  days 
of  spending,  you  threw  away  the  minutes  with  both 
hands  and  lived  only  for  the  second!  And  the  heart- 
ache when  the  curtain  fell  on  the  most  spanking  prince 
and  most  entrancing  girl  who  ever  danced  through  tribu- 
lation in  satin  shoes!  I  forget  what  golden  harridan 
it  was  who  peopled  my  dreams  between  the  ages  of 
seven  and  twelve  with  her  dashing  presence,  her  rollick- 
ing spirits,  her  plumed  three-cornered  hats,  her  cock- 
ades and  her  diadems,  her  riding-whips  and  her  jewelled 
garters.  I  forget  what  little  lady  in  doublet  of  sage- 
green  held  my  heart  against  all  comers  during  the  same 
period.  I  only  know  that  when  at  my  first  Shakespear- 
ean play  I  beheld  some  actress  of  repute  as  the  wood- 
land Rosalind  she  seemed  but  the  poorest  patch  upon 
my  little  green  lady  of  the  pantomime. 

Summer  holidays  bring  the  bitter-sweet  of  the  year, 
not  the  sea,  which  is  a  purely  grown-up  affair,  but  the 
seaside.  I  go  once  again  through  all  the  many  stages 
that  lead  up  to  the  delirious  departure  in  the  four- 


RESPONSIBILITY  61 

wheeled  cab,  the  luggage  gone  before  in  a  responsible, 
more  slowly  moving  vehicle. 

"Suppose,  my  dear,"  my  mother  would  say,  "sup- 
pose we  try  somewhere  else  this  year.  Wales  is  getting 
so  crowded." 

And  my  father  would  agree. 

Then  would  follow  the  making  out  of  lists  of  things 
to  be  taken,  my  father  suggesting  that  it  might  be 
shorter  to  tabulate  the  things  to  be  left  behind;  the 
cold  fear  that  one  might  fall  ill,  or  my  father  be  called 
abroad,  or  Uncle  Reuben  tumble  down  in  a  fit.  Then 
the  last  fever  of  packing,  the  farewells  of  old  Margery 
left  in  charge  of  the  summer  cleaning,  the  terror  that 
the  luggage  might  be  lost,  that  we  should  be  late  for 
the  train,  the  crowd  at  the  station,  the  frenzied  hunt 
for  the  reserved  compartment.  All  this  would  take 
place  on  the  Saturday  preceding  August  Bank  Holiday. 
Then  the  choice  of  window-seats,  the  counting  of  sta- 
tions, the  cold  chicken  and  sip  of  claret  in  the  train, 
the  first  glimpse  of  the  sea  at  Mold,  is  it,  or  Prestatyn  ? 
For  of  course  we  were  bound  for  Wales  after  all.  And 
now  the  getting  out  of  the  luggage,  the  welcoming  sta- 
tion-master, the  drive  to  the  better-class  lodgings  in  the 
village — the  sea-front  was  thought  by  my  mother  to  be 
"fast" — the  familiar  welcome  by  Mrs  Griffiths,  Hughes 
or  Williams,  the  tea  with  real  shrimps.  Last,  a  Satur- 
day evening,  and  then  a  Sunday  of  sheer  anti-climax. 
My  father  tired,  my  mother  busy  unpacking  and  Sun- 
day at  the  seaside  the  usual  dies  non,  for  thirty-six 
hours  would  I  hang  miserably  about.  What  urgency  of 
desire  baulked,  the  most  one  could  do  being  to  eye 
possible  playmates  and  wonder  whether  this  year  one 
would  be  considered  old  enough  to  join  in  the  cricket 


62  RESPONSIBILITY 

matches  on  the  sands!    A  last  place  perhaps,  Jack  and 
long-stop  for  both  sides. 

Oh,  little,  little  town,  I  wonder  whether  you  are 
changed  to-day?  Does  the  road  to  the  beach  still  go 
under  the  railway  bridge,  turn  sharply  to  the  right 
past  the  shop  with  the  open  door  and  magic  litter  of 
spades  and  buckets,  pinnaces  and  sloops,  cricket-bats 
and  fishing-nets?  Does  the  treacherous  little  inshore 
stream  still  come  in  in  advance  of  the  tide  and  cut 
off  all  but  old  and  experienced  visitors?  I  wonder 
whether  it  has  become  proper  for  little  boys  to  take 
the  quick  cut  to  the  beach — the  hurry  is  tremendous — 
through  the  garden  and  down  the  entry,  instead  of  the 
more  formal  road  by  the  big  hotel ;  and  whether  a  new 
generation  of  high-couraged,  white-flannelled  young 
men,  sparks  rather,  has  arisen  to  play  lawn-tennis  and 
walk  with  pretty  ladies.  Do  little  boys  still  confuse 
the  glory  of  sea  and  sky  with  the  taste  of  milk  and 
gingerbread?  Do  they  and  their  little  girl  cousins 
still  look  for  star-fish  together  ?  Does  the  lighthouse  on 
the  island  still  revolve,  and  by  "revolve"  I  mean  turn 
on  a  central  axis,  light,  windows,  masonry  and  all; 
and  can  you  count  up  to  sixty  waggons  and  more  in  the 
goods  trains  creeping  along  the  embankment  at  night 
like  gigantic  caterpillars  with  eyes  of  fire?  Does  the 
water  still  come  over  the  falls  and  do  they  talk  of  Mr 
Gladstone  at  the  cottage  by  the  bridge?  Does  the 
thatch  on  the  little  house  where  you  turn  off  from  the 
main  road  still  grow  flaming  weeds  ?  Is  the  mysterious 
lake  undiscoverable  as  ever  in  the  bosom  of  the  hills, 
and  do  adventurous  souls  still  make  the  journey  over 
the  Carnedds?  Do  right-minded  children  call  the  hill 
.behind  the  town  by  its  proper  name  of  Tiger  Moun- 


RESPONSIBILITY  63 

tain,  and  do  the  stars  come  out  as  little  tired  boys  begin 
to  think  of  supper? 

I  know  that  even  now  on  summer  nights  a  phantom 
singer  will  hoarsely  bawl: 

Come  to  me,   sweet   Marie, 

Sweet  Marie,  come  to  me, 

Not  because  your  face  is  fair,  love,  to  see, 

But  your  soul,  so  pure   and  sweet, 

Makes  my  happiness  complete, 

Makes  me  falter  at  your  feet,  sweet  Marie. 

A  few  brave  chords  on  a  ghostly  harp,  and  then: 

Oh,   Tommy,  Tommy  Atkins, 
You're  a  good  'un,  heart  and  hand, 
You're  a  credit  to  your  country 
And  to  all  your  native  land. 
May  your  luck  be  never  failing, 
May  your  love  be  ever   true, 
God  bless  you,  Tommy  Atkins, 
Here's  your  country's  health  to  you! 

You  may  not  hear  the  quavering  voice  and  the  un- 
certain plucking  of  the  strings,  but  what  is  that  to  me  ? 
For  me  the  years  have  not  stilled  them.  For  me  the 
years  have  not  dimmed  the  glory  of  the  sunset  gilding 
the  Straits  at  the  spot  where  you  know  the  bridge  must 
be,  nor  silenced  the  ripple  of  the  waves,  nor  effaced 
the  memory  of  the  communion  between  the  grave  man 
of  middle  age  and  the  boy  trotting  silently  by  his  side. 
Oh  little,  little  town,  however  soberly  your  heart  beats 
in  these  sad,  grown-up  days,  the  heart  of  a  boy  beats 
to  your  time  and  measure  now  and  for  ever. 

§v 

On  the  day  after  my  ninth  birthday  I  was  sent  to  a 
boys'  school  known  as  "Mr  Tindall's." 

My  first  apprehension  of  the  deceptiveness  of  earth- 


64  RESPONSIBILITY 

ly  things  dates  from  the  recognition  that  Mr  Tindall, 
surrounded  by  a  class  of  small  boys,  was  a  very  differ- 
ent person  from  the  persuasive  individual  I  had  seen 
in  my  mother's  drawing-room.  On  that  occasion  speech 
had  been  with  the  lady,  and  the  schoolmaster  did  not 
find  opportunity  to  say  more  than  that  he  had  never 
heard  Mrs  Hemans'  Oh,  call  my  Brother  back  to  me 
recited  with  greater  feeling.  He  then  patted  me  on 
the  head  and  said  that  I  should  not  be  lonely  and  was 
sure  to  make  plenty  of  little  friends.  Now  as  I  sate — 
I  have  always  longed  to  make  use  of  Dean  Farrar's  im- 
pressive version  of  that  past  tense — as  I  sate  trembling 
on  my  lonely  form  I  seemed  to  view  Mr  Tindall  with 
different  eyes.  It  was  not  given  to  me  to  know  then  a3 
I  know  now  that  the  school  did  not  pay,  that  the  school- 
master's slender  capital  was  shrinking  fast,  that  he 
was  insufficiently  fed,  that  his  wife  was  a  shade  too 
pretty,  and  that  on  the  very  day  of  my  arrival  he  had 
contracted  an  obligation  to  thrash  before  the  whole 
school  a  hulking,  overgrown  youth  towards  whom  he 
stood  at  a  physical  disadvantage. 

In  the  matter  of  the  little  friends  I  can  truthfully 
say  that  I  made  plenty  of  little  enemies.  I  suppose  I 
must  have  been  a  more  detestable  prig  than  is  usually 
the  case  even  with  only  sons.  To  begin  with,  I  had 
been  too  well  educated  at  home.  I  had  as  perfect  a 
knowledge  of  the  anecdotal  side  of  English  History  as 
the  compiler  of  Little  Arthur  herself.  (In  spite  of 
proof  to  the  contrary  I  should  always  insist  on  feminine 
responsibility  for  that  delightful  tale.)  I  am  still  con- 
vinced that  the  smear  of  red  ink  on  the  page  which  re- 
counts the  execution  of  Charles  the  First  is  a  drop  of 
the  actual  blood  of  that  martyr.  I  knew  my  dates  per- 
fectly, and  you  could  not  have  tripped  me  up  by  asking 


RESPONSIBILITY  65 

for  the  Edwards  and  the  Henrys  in  their  wrong  order. 
I  knew  which  monarchs  had  been  "wise  and  good"  and 
which  "weak-minded  and  dissolute."  I  could  describe 
the  strategy  which  won  us  Cre§y,  and  how  the  English 
fell  into  the  trap  at  Bannockbum.  I  may  not  have 
been  very  clear  about  whom  or  what  the  Reformation 
was  intended  to  reform,  but  I  could  reel  off  the  candle- 
lighting  epigrams  of  Messrs  Cranmer,  Latimer  and  Rid- 
ley. I  knew  what  rivers  take  their  rise  "in  the  back- 
bone of  England,"  and  how  to  tell  a  right  bank  from  a 
left.  I  could  enumerate  the  counties  of  Scotland  and 
half  those  of  Ireland,  and  was  pat  with  the  products 
of  South  America  and  Greece.  I  knew  the  multiplica- 
tion table  up  to  fourteen  times  and  could  write  a  toler- 
able essay  in  fair  round  hand.  And  so  before  the  first 
week  was  out  it  was  conveyed  to  me  that  I  was  a  beastly 
little  "swat."  I  will  not  deny  that  I  made  some  tactical 
mistakes  such  as  cleverly  answering  a  poser  six  places 
before  my  turn,  crying  out  that  Fish  minor  was  "copy- 
ing," and  informing  the  mild  gentleman  who  took  us 
in  French  that  the  correct  pronunciation  of  pays  is 
pay-ee  and  not  pie.  On  the  eve  of  an  important  match 
I  had  thrown  a  stone  across  the  playground  and  bruised 
the  shin  of  the  football  captain.  I  had  explained  to  a 
loutish  youth  that  I  did  not  want  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  beastly  words,  which  piece  of  self-righteous- 
ness resulted  in  a  hiding  and  the  glueing  of  my  eye  to 
a  hole  in  the  wall  in  the  pretence  of  an  interest  in  a 
neighbour's  hen-run. 

Other  troubles  I  had,  not  of  my  own  making.  My 
first  home-task  consisted  in  learning  by  rote  twenty 
lines  of  a  poem  beginning  "The  stag  at  eve  had  drunk 
his  fill."  Now  I  had  learnt  my  Hemans  and  Laetitia 
Barbauld  literally  at  my  mother's  knee,  repeating  the 


66  RESPONSIBILITY 

lines  as  she  said  them  and  mastering  them  after  as 
many  repetitions  as  were  necessary.  But  twenty  lines 
at  a  sitting!  I  got  the  first  couplet  perfect  and  then 
the  second,  but  by  the  time  I  had  mastered  the  third  and 
fourth  I  had  lost  all  knowledge  of  the  first.  I  re- 
mastered these  and  could  at  last  repeat  eight  lines  with- 
out hesitation.  But  when  I  had  arrived  at  the  four- 
teenth I  found  I  had  forgotten  all  the  preceding  ones. 
I  dug  my  fingers  into  my  ears  and  started  all  over  again. 
It  was  nearly  nine  o'clock  and  past  bed-time.  At  half- 
past  nine  I  was  fretting  badly,  but  my  mother  coming 
up  to  the  schoolroom  and  hearing  the  words  over  calmly 
restored  me.  At  ten  o'clock  my  father  demanded  to 
know  the  meaning  of  all  this  nonsense  and  packed  me 
off  to  bed.  I  went  to  sleep  with  the  tears  still  wet  on 
my  face.  Remember  that  I  was  only  nine.  In  the  morn- 
ing the  miracle  had  happened ;  I  knew  my  lines  perfect- 
ly and  could  recite  them  at  top  speed  without  the  possi- 
bility of  a  mistake.  I  remembered  them  for  ten  years 
and  then  forgot  them  for  ever. 

I  had  the  same  experience  with  my  first  proposition 
in  Euclid,  which  I  learnt  by  heart  without  reference  to 
the  figure.  My  plight  may  be  imagined  when  on  the 
black-board  X,  Y  and  Z  were  most  unfairly  substi- 
tuted for  A,  B  and  C.  To  prove  that  I  had  not  entire- 
ly neglected  my  task,  I  offered  to  recite  the  whole 
proposition  with  the  original  letters,  there  and  then 
shutting  my  eyes  and  reeling  it  off.  The  third  master, 
who  "took"  us  in  "Maths.,"  at  once  set  himself  to  ex* 
plain  that  Euclid  was  "not  poetry  but  sense."  It  wa3 
the  second  master  who  instructed  us  in  English  Litera- 
ture, and  there  was  no  love  lost  between  them. 

It  was  a  small  school  and  the  teaching,  according  to 
modern  views,  muddled   and  haphazard,   but  it  was 


RESPONSIBILITY  67 

there  that  I  received  my  only  education.  My  general 
equipment  qualified  me  for  a  place  fairly  high  up  in  the 
school,  but  alas!  I  had  no  Latin.  Tindall  was  not 
to  be  denied,  and  took  me  privately  in  the  mysterious 
ways  of  amo,  moneo  and  venio.  Behold  me,  then,  after 
a  fortnight's  grounding,  plunged,  not  into  the  middle 
of  Gallic  wars,  but  into  the  wanderings  of  iEneas. 

And  with  what  gusto  did  old  Tindall  translate  his 
Virgil!  "Never  mind  the  dictionary,  boy;  put  it  in 
your  own  words.  If  anything  extraordinary  were  to 
happen  to  you,  how  would  you  tell  them  at  home?'* 
Before  I  was  fourteen  I  had  a  very  considerable  know- 
ledge of  that  sweet  poet  and  had  done,  and  done  appre- 
ciatively, Voltaire's  Francis  I.,  a  good  half  of  Moliere 
and  the  whole  of  Schiller's  Der  dreiszigjdhrige  Krieg. 
These  I  had  learnt  to  read  as  though  they  were  written 
in  my  own  tongue  and  by  a  writer  of  yesterday.  In 
addition,  I  knew  and  revelled  in  Coriolanus,  Richard 
II.  and  the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV.  I  must  confess  that 
I  could  take  no  liking  to  Henry  V.,  of  which  the  hero 
struck  me  as  being  the  biggest  prig  in  Shakespeare.  On 
this  eminence  he  remained  until  later  years  brought  ac- 
quaintance with  Isabella.  The  more  grown-up  tragedies 
we  were  not  allowed  to  touch,  the  old  boy  holding  that 
they  should  remain  unspoiled  for  later  life. 

Often  my  father  would  help  me  with  my  home  work, 
never  failing  to  put  his  evening  paper  on  one  side  when 
I  was  in  real  difficulties,  but  resolutely  refusing  to 
regard  himself  as  a  simple  labour-saving  device.  Some- 
times he  would  take  down  from  the  Keighley  book- 
shelf a  ponderous  arithmetic  of  an  out-of-dateness  posi- 
tively disconcerting,  and  a  Walker's  Dictionary  which 
jibbed  at  nearly  all  the  words  in  common  use.  I  am 
not  sure  that  at  times  I  was  not  guilty  of  looking  down 


68  RESPONSIBILITY 

upon  his  schooling.  Fathers  who  fear  to  be  scorned  by 
your  children,  let  me  beg  of  you  to  realise  that  there 
is  one  thing  even  more  important  than  keeping  abreast 
of  their  slang,  and  that  is  to  avoid  taking  down  from 
your  Keighley  book-shelf  some  weighty  tome  by  the 
help  of  which  you  will  still  be  millions  of  decimal  places 
out  of  modern  reckoning!  But  perhaps  you  belong  to 
the  new,  unsentimental  order  of  parents,  and  do  not 
know  what  a  Keighley  book-shelf  is.  Let  me  explain. 
My  father  and  his  father  before  him  were  born  at 
Keighley,  and  among  the  latter's  boyish  treasures  were 
Miss  Martineau's  The  Crofton  Boys,  and  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  Frank;  Harry  and  Lucy,  Sand  ford  and  Merton, 
Captain  Cook's  Voyages,  a  few  volumes  of  Peter  Parley 
and  an  antiquated  treatise  on  Sun  and  Moon.  My 
mother  kept  these  faded  books  on  a  shelf  apart,  gave 
them  their  collective  name  and  bade  me  handle  them 
tenderly.  "They  belonged  to  your  father's  father," 
she  said,  "and  some  day  I  hope  they  will  belong  to  my 
son's  son." 

I  soon  realised  that  at  school — and  I  have  made  the 
same  discovery  in  later  life — the  essence  of  success  is 
to  supply  not  what  people  ought  to  want,  but  what 
they  actually  do  want.  Apart  from  his  outlook  on  the 
poets,  Tindall  was  like  all  other  schoolmasters  in  this: 
that  he  demanded  from  his  pupils  not  knowledge,  but 
answers.  A  correct  string  of  dynasties  and  battles 
earned  from  him  more  marks  than  the  profoundest 
grasp  of  the  trend  of  events.  The  tip  for  Magna  Charta 
was  that  it  was  signed  by  a  very  evil-tempered  king  sur- 
rounded by  a  lot  of  angry  barons  on  a  damp  island 
called  Eunnymede.  I  used  to  imagine  the  poor  mon- 
arch, perpetually  crowned  and  sceptred,  chased  all  over 
his  kingdom  and  finally  cornered  as  in  our  game  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  69 

blackthorn.  Incidentally  it  was  as  well  to  remember 
that  the  object  of  the  Charter  was  to  free  the  barons 
from  oppression  by  the  king,  and  I  used  to  wonder  who 
or  what  it  was  that  served  to  protect  the  people  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  barons.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned 
sociological  history  is  then  silent  for  some  three  or  four 
hundred  years.  Generations  of  warlike  and  spectacular 
monarchs  seemed  to  spend  their  time  tramping  up  and 
down  France,  all  very  heroically  no  doubt,  and  in  the 
ratio  of  one  volunteer  to  fifteen  "foreign  mercenaries." 
Their  success  was  unbroken,  and  I  can  never  quite 
understand  how  we  came  to  lose  what  we  had  so  glori- 
ously gained.  On  this  point  the  history  books  were  al- 
ways silent.  After  the  perfunctory  termination  to  these 
the  most  Shakespearean  of  our  wars  the  English  kings 
appear  to  have  had  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  quarrel 
among  themselves.  My  own  view  of  the  Houses  of 
York  and  Lancaster  is  that  they  reigned  simultaneously 
in  different  parts  of  England.  Note  that  Tewkesbury 
is  one  good  name  for  examination  purposes  and  Pont©- 
fract  (pronounced  Pomfret)  another.  These  civil  wars 
concluded,  prancing  about  upon  cloths  of  gold  and  cir- 
cumventing the  marriage  laws  appear  to  have  been  the 
favourite  occupations,  giving  place,  in  their  turn,  to 
the  fright  about  the  Armada,  although  like  every  self- 
respecting  English  boy  I  always  felt  that  even  if  the 
Dons  had  landed  they  would  have  made  little  of  our 
stubborn  islanders  and  would  sooner  or  later  have  been 
bundled  into  the  sea.  But  of  the  sufferings  and  priva- 
tions, of  the  belly  needs  and  the  spiritual  wants  of  the 
people,  not  a  word.  Then  suddenly  John's  barons  come 
to  life  again  in  the  persons  of  Pym  and  Hampden; 
only  this  time  it  is  the  Commons  who  are  to  be  pro- 
fited from  the  folly  of  a  king  claiming  very  beautifully 


70  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  pathetically  Divine  Right  and  Prerogative.  Noth- 
ing in  my  boyish  perusal  of  history  made  stronger  im- 
pression on  me  than  the  difference  in  class,  as  we  should 
now  say,  between  Charles's  well-bred  courtesy  and  the 
unadorned  rudeness  of  his  persecutors.  The  Roundhead 
had  a  cause  to  vote  for ;  the  Royalist  died  for  his. 

And  this  was  about  the  extent  of  my  historical 
studies.  The  Restoration  is  not  a  popular  period  with 
schools,  and  I  have  never  been  in  a  class  that  has  got 
beyond  William  and  Mary.  To  sum  up,  all  that  I 
gathered  of  the  great  English  past  was  one  long  series 
of  highly-coloured  lantern-slides  portraying  some  ac- 
cident to  the  individual.  Monarchs  stabbed  while 
drinking,  unhorsed  by  hot  cinders  and  buried  at  Caen, 
slain  by  glancing  arrows,  crammed  to  distressful  death 
with  potted  lampreys.  Princes  drowning  in  malmsey- 
butts.  Bluff  gormandisers.  Pale  ladies  going  limply 
to  the  block.  In  a  word,  a  History  of  the  English  Peo- 
ple without  mention  of  the  People. 

What  a  jumble  the  foreign  relationships  of  the  pa3t 
appear  to  have  been !  I  am  still  as  ignorant  as  Little 
Peterkin  as  to  what  possible  business  Marlborough  can 
have  had  at  Blenheim,  and  why  the  Dutch  should  have 
wanted  to  come  up  our  Medway.  I  do  not  believe  that 
I  should  ever  have  heard  of  the  discovery  of  America 
had  it  not  been  for  the  chance  it  has  always  given  the 
historian  of  being  amusing  on  the  subject  of  eggs.  Nor 
has  it  ever  been  explained  to  me  what  we  are  doing  in 
India.  Is  it  possible  that  trade  and  not  altruism  may 
have  something  to  do  with  it  ? 

Hand-in-hand  with  this  scrap-book  notion  of  the 
march  of  English  events  went  a  complete  ignorance  of 
world  history.  One  came  across  foreign  monarchs  only 
when  it  pleased  our  English  sovereigns  to  go  inimically 


RESPONSIBILITY  71 

or  joustingly  to  meet  them.  I  never  heard  of  Charle- 
magne, Henri  Quatre,  Charles  of  Sweden,  Peter  the 
Great;  and  only  casually  of  the  French  Revolution.  I 
was  left  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  all  Roman  history 
except  that  part  of  it  which  concerns  55  B.C.  No,  this  is 
an  injustice  to  my  teachers  and  I  must  correct  myself. 
I  was  told  of  an  Emperor,  or  he  may  have  been  a  Pope, 
who  thought  Angles  were  Angels.  But  of  Greek,  Per- 
sian, Egyptian  and  Assyrian  records,  not  a  word.  I 
learnt  of  the  Trojan  Wars  from  the  pages  of  a  child's 
paper  called  Chatterbox;  of  Scipio  from  an  old  copy  of 
Plutarch's  Lives.  I  had  turned  twenty  before  I  had  ever 
heard  of  the  battle  of  Salamis,  of  the  crossings  of  the 
Rubicon  and  the  Alps,  of  the  sack  of  Carthage.  I  am 
still  entirely  ignorant  as  to  which  of  the  Herods,  if  any, 
was  contemporary  with  Cleopatra,  and  how  the  Pha- 
raohs stand  in  relation  to  the  Ptolemies,  or  Boadicea 
to  Attila  and  Nebuchadnezzar.  Surely  it  should  be 
possible  to  synchronise  history,  to  give  the  child  a  map 
of  the  world's  events  as  of  its  mountains  and  its  rivers. 
Surely  there  should  be  some  way  of  suggesting  to  the 
next  generation  that  the  tomfoolery  of  the  German 
William  is  only  the  bravery  and  swagger  of  our  Ed- 
wards and  Henrys  half-a-dozen  centuries  out  of  date. 
History  will  have  changed  indeed  if,  a  hundred  years 
hence,  she  tells  children  something  of  the  inner  mean- 
ing of  Bolshevism  to  the  suppression  of  the  exact  num- 
ber of  troops  engaged  on  the  Vimy  Ridge. 

But  I  want  history  to  do  more  than  this.  I  want  a 
drab  declaration  of  the  state  of  common  existence  side 
by  side  with  the  unfolding  of  the  gorgeous  pageant. 
I  want  every  boy  and  girl  to  know  who  first  imposed 
the  Corn  Laws  and  why,  and  who  repealed  them  and 
for  what  reason.    I  want  the  historian  and  not  the  poli- 


72  RESPONSIBILITY 

tician  to  tell  our  children  of  the  true  economic  condi- 
tion of  the  country — how  much  bread  a  child  had  to 
eat  per  day  and  on  how  many  days  a  week  it  had  meat 
— in  the  time  of  Bright  and  Cobden.  I  want  the 
historian  and  not  the  politician  to  make  declaration 
of  the  comparative  rate  of  wages,  the  cost  and  scale  of 
living  in  Free  Trade  England  and  in  Tariff-controlled 
— I  won't  say  blessed  or  burdened — France  or  Ger- 
many. I  don't  want  any  waving  of  loaves,  or  rhetoric  to 
the  effect  that  The  Foreigner  Pays,  A  Tax  on  Leather 
means  Cheaper  Boots,  Dearer  Bread  brings  Higher 
Wages.  I  don't  want  war-cries  and  I  hardly  want  de- 
ductions. I  want  facts  as  seen  through  the  spectacles 
of  unbiassed  recorders.  I  would  ask  that  history  should 
be  written  by  our  judges,  were  not  their  long  training 
in  advocacy  against  them.  I  have  no  political  views. 
Until  I  see  Conservatives  setting  out  the  strong  points 
of  Free  Trade  and  Liberals  confessing  to  possible  ad- 
vantages in  a  system  of  Tariff  Reform,  I  shall  decline 
to  believe  that  either  side  is  trying  to  get  at  the  root  of 
the  matter.  I  want  history  to  explain  the  use  we  made 
of  the  passionate  fire  and  zeal  of  Parnell,  of  the  great 
abilities  of  Charles  Dilke;  to  enumerate  exactly,  item 
by  item,  the  grievances  of  which  the  Irish  Question  was 
composed,  and  to  explain  how  it  came  about  that  two 
great  English  parties,  composed  presumably  of  honest 
statesmen  striving  to  help  each  other  to  find  a  cure  for 
common  ill,  failed  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  to 
achieve  anything  beyond  bitterness  and  hatred.  And 
I  shall  want  history  to  explain  why  the  English  nation, 
if  it  ever  for  a  moment  realised  that  its  statesmen  were 
mere  carpet-bagging  adventures,  did  not  rise  up  in  its 
wrath  and  rid  the  country  of  theso  hindersome  pests.  .  .  . 


RESPONSIBILITY  73 


VI 


I  have  refrained  from  giving  any  account  of  my 
father  for  the  reason  that  a  description  of  externals 
would  tell  the  reader  little,  and  then  I  am  not  sure  that 
I  ever  quite  understood  him.  He  was  a  man  of  im- 
mense reserves  and  a  quite  abnormal  shyness.  As  a  char- 
acteristic detail  let  me  record  that,  although  he  was 
curiously  unable  to  whistle,  yet  when  my  mother  was 
ill  he  would  frame  his  lips  to  the  ghost  of  a  pipe  until 
the  arrival  of  the  doctor  put  a  term  to  his  anxiety. 
He  was  a  man  of  simple  tastes.  He  never  made  any 
attempt  to  interfere  with  mine,  or  perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  say  that  I  was  unaware  of  any  such  attempt. 
He  would  leave  books  in  my  way,  Marryat,  Kingston 
and  Fenimore  Cooper  when  I  was  a  small  boy,  Charles 
Eeade  and  Dickens  as  soon  as  I  bocran  to  c;o  to  school. 
At  the  week-end  he  would  invite  me  to  read  aloud  such 
of  the  political  notes  in  The  Saturday  Review  as 
seemed  to  me  to  be  of  interest,  and  the  whole  of  the 
literary,  musical  and  dramatic  criticism  of  that  jour- 
nal. When  old  Tindall  inflicted  on  us  as  a  holiday  task 
that  tiresome  masterpiece,  Old  Mortality,  my  father 
proposed  that  we  should  read  aloud  in  turns,  his  idea 
of  reading  in  turns  being  that  I  should  wade  through 
the  Scott  whilst  he  revelled,  with  certain  unimportant 
deletions  respectful  to  my  mother's  ears,  in  such  stirring 
works  as  Humphry  Clinker  or  Tristram  Shandy.  My 
mother  always  sat  with  her  work  at  my  father's  elbow, 
and  he  would  constantly  interrupt  the  reading  to  adjust 
her  shawl,  pick  up  her  wool,  or  any  other  of  a.  hundred 
little  offices.  And  my  mother  would  smile  and  nod  and 
wave  to  us  to  continue. 

My  father  had  broad  sympathies  and  strong  political 


74  RESPONSIBILITY 

views  which  he  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  confining 
within  the  bounds  of  any  particular  party.  It  is  true 
that  he  never  made  the  attempt,  that  he  voted  as^  he 
liked,  and  was  the  despair  of  the  canvasser  and  political 
ao-ent.  He  had  immense  tolerance  in  the  matter  of 
religious  opinion,  and  would  attend  indifferently  at  all 
places  of  worship.  My  mother  and  he  were  married  at 
a  Unitarian  chapel  by  a  Unitarian  minister,  and  it  was 
in  this  connection  that  I  saw  him  indulge  in  one  of 
his  rare  accesses  of  rage.  It  was  brought  about  by 
the  tactlessness  of  one  Horatia  Gadgett,  widow  of  the 
Eev.  Stephen  Gadgett,  late  rector  of  St  Euphorbius's. 
Insect-minded  and  intolerant,  hung  about  with  preju- 
dices, it  was  this  lady's  habit  to  go  shrouded  in  crepe, 
smelling  heavily  of  tuberoses,  her  bust  a  tinkling  bat- 
tery of  woe.  This  walking  catafalque,  as  my  father 
would  call  her,  had  the  unhappiness  to  say  to  my 
mother  over  our  best  tea-cups  and  with  two  streams  of 
yellow  butter  trickling  down  her  chin : 

"My  dear  the  least  we  can  do  in  the  way  of  grateful 
return  for  a  marriage  made  in  heaven  is  to  take  care 
that  it  is  properly  solemnised  on  earth.  I  need  hardly 
say  that  I  allude  to  our  beautiful  Church  Service.  I 
have  never  considered  that  you  and  your  dear  husband 
were  properly  married." 

Whereupon  my  father,  each  particular  hair  on  end 
and  the  fervour  of  an  interrupted  page  of  Smollett 
strong  upon  him,  rushed  to  the  door,  and  in  a  voice 
half-way  between  roar  and  bellow,  exclaimed : 

"My  son,  ma'am,  is  too  old  to  be  called  a  bastard. 
He  is  no  fool  and  understands  the  implication.  I  give 
you  good-day." 

And  he  flung  the  door  open. 

Then  did  the  good  Gadgett,  assiduous  pillar  of  an 


RESPONSIBILITY  75 

Established  Church,  but  now  quite,  quite  shaken,  her 
kitchen  battery  jangled  and  out  of  tune,  move  to  an 
exit,  a  quivering  and  inky  jelly,  an  undertaker's  ven- 
ture in  distress.     At  the  door  she  broke  down. 

"I  don't  mean  to  say  the  boy's  not  born  in  wedlock," 
she  sobbed. 

"How  can  you,  James!"  cried  my  mother,  and  fell 
to  comforting  the  wretch.  My  father  blew  his  nose, 
put  on  his  hat,  bade  me  fetch  my  cap,  and  walked  me 
five  miles  within  the  hour  without  a  word. 

But  it  was  to  this  narrow,  limited  soul  that  my 
father  turned  in  the  sad  event  which  was  to  happen 
soon  afterwards.  I  suppose  I  was  as  simple  a  lad  as 
ever  breathed,  and  there  seemed  to  me  to  be  nothing 
extraordinary  in  my  father  saying  one  evening  shortly 
before  Christmas: 

"Your  mother  is  a  little  run  down  and  wants  rest, 
so  you  are  going  to  spend  a  few  days  at  Mrs  Gadgett's. 
I  am  sure  you  will  be  a  good  boy  and  give  her  no 
trouble." 

There  had  been  a  prolonged  frost  and  I  spent  most  of 
the  time  skating  with  the  Gadgett  girls.  Then  one 
day  my  father  called  and  remained  for  a  long  time  in 
what  seemed  to  be  consultation  with  Horatia.  I  could 
hear  them  in  the  next  room  and  I  was  conscious  that 
he  walked  about  a  good  deal.  After  a  time  they  both 
came  in,  and  my  father  looked  very  grave.  He  said 
little  to  me  beyond  bidding  me  continue  to  be  a  good 
boy,  and  promising  that  he  would  give  my  love  to  my 
mother.  Soon  afterwards  he  went  away.  Early  next 
morning  old  Margery  came  to  fetch  me,  saying  that 
my  mother  was  very  ill  and  calling  me  "poor  lamb"  a 
great  many  times.  When  we  got  home  she  was  dead; 
the  child  lived  for  a  few  hours. 


76  RESPONSIBILITY 

In  the  time  which  followed  I  found  my  father  entire- 
ly inconsolable  and  strangely  lacking  in  any  power  to 
comfort  me. 

"Your  mother  would  not  have  liked  us  to  make  any 
difference  in  our  daily  round,''  he  said,  and  so  we  re- 
sumed all  our  old  habits.  But  I  noticed  that  he  never 
settled  himself  to  read  without  first  placing  my  mother's- 
chair  in  its  old  position  and  resting  his  arm  on  the  worn 
leather. 

One  night  when  we  were  half-way  through  Don 
Quixote  he  closed  the  book  and  said: 

"I  shall  have  news  for  you,  Edward,  as  soon  as  we've 
finished  with  the  Don." 

The  news  was  that  I  was  to  go  to  a  boarding-school 
for  three  years.  My  father  had  taken  it  into  his  head 
that  by  keeping  me  at  home  he  was  sacrificing  me  to 
his  need  for  companionship.  He  gave  me  a  fortnight 
in  which  to  prepare  for  the  change,  and  putting  thirty 
pounds  into  my  hands  and  a  printed  list  of  the  things 
which  the  school  governors  recommended  as  a  proper 
outfit,  told  me  to  spend  the  money  sensibly,  and  to 
buy  only  the  best  quality. 

"I  don't  want  to  know  how  you  lay  out  the  money," 
he  said.  "You  will  have  to  make  your  own  decisions 
some  dav  and  vou  may  as  well  be^in  now." 

On  the  morning  of  my  departure,  a  morning  of  wet 
fog,  Dame  Margery  put  round  my  shoulders  an  enor- 
mous muffler  at  which  she  had  been  knitting  for  weeks 
and  of  which  I  was  secretly  rather  ashamed.  She  then 
pressed  into  my  hand  a  half-sovereign,  of  which  I  was 
not  ashamed  at  all.  I  kissed  her,  I  hope  heartily.  When 
we  were  nearly  at  our  destination  my  father  cleared 
his  throat,  looked  out  of  the  carriage  window  and  said : 

"Edward,  listen  to  me.     I  want  you  to  promise  to 


RESPONSIBILITY  77 

change  your  boots  and  socks  whenever  you  get  wet,  and 
to  write  once  a  week."  He  paused  a  moment  and  then 
went  on :  "I  want  you  to  promise  me  never  to  do  any- 
thing which  you  would  be  ashamed  that  your  dear 
mother  should  see.  I  do  not  say  that  she  is  looking  down 
upon  you,  but  I  do  ask  you  to  behave  as  though  your 
conduct  could  give  her  joy  or  pain." 

I  promised  solemnly. 

He  then  resumed :  "When  you  go  to  church  you  will 
take  with  you  the  Prayer  Book  which  your  mother 
used  when  she  was  a  girl.  You  will  not  lose  it,  or 
mark  it,  or  let  any  boy  scribble  in  it." 

And  he  handed  me  a  tiny  packet..  He  then  took  out 
of  his  pocket  a  little  cardboard  box  such  as  jewellers 
use.  Removal  of  cotton  wool  and  tissue  paper  revealed 
a  gold  watch  and  chain. 

"It  ought  to  keep  good  time,"  he  said.  Then,  diving 
into  his  pocket  and  producing  a  couple  of  sovereigns: 
"Your  form-master  will  give  you  sixpence  a  week 
pocket-money,  and  you  can  have  more  whenever  you 
need  it  by  writing  to  me.  But  I  would  rather  you  man- 
aged on  what.  I  give  you  now  and  the  Saturday  six- 
pence." Here  he  handed  me  the  two  sovereigns.  "I'll 
send  you  a  parcel  of  grub,  or  tuck,  or  whatever  you  fel- 
lows call  it,  once  a  month,  or  as  often  as  may  be  allowed. 
In  my  time  we  called  it  'jollyboy.'  I  don't  suppose  you 
will  be  allowed  to  brew.  And  don't  smoke.  But  if  you 
do,  go  slow  at  first,  or  it  will  make  you  horribly  sick. 
Or  have  you  smoked  already?" 

"No,"  I  answered  truthfully. 

"And  when  you'' re  caught,  don't  deny  it.  It's  never 
any  use  lying  unless  you  are  going  to  be  believed.  And 
above  all,  don't  say  another  fellow  persuaded  you  to. 
We're  nearly  there;  I  think  the  next  station's  ours." 


78  RESPONSIBILITY 

Before  the  train  stopped  I  had  time  to  make  a  hur- 
ried examination  of  the  watch.  It  bore  that  day's  date 
and  the  inscription :  "From  Father  and  Mother  to  their 
dear  son." 


Vll 


Upthorne  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  our  Public  Schools, 
its  coat-of-arms  a  long-robed  figure  with  a  child  which 
I  always  used  to  take  for  the  Virgin  Mary  and  Infant 
Jesus ;  its  motto  undecipherable,  the  aim  of  black 
letter  being  to  baffle  the  diligent  equally  with  the  cu- 
rious. At  a  distance  of  three  miles  you  can  see  tlio 
school's  noble  and  imposing  piles,  white  against  grey 
scree,  divided  by  the  Flat,  a  level,  asphalted  area  which 
seemed  to  me  in  my  young  days  about  ten  times  tho 
size  of  a  lawn-tennis  court.  Allowing  for  the  shrinkage 
of  years,  suppose  we  say  four  times.  The  school  domi- 
nates the  town  and  is  the  town,  it  being  inconceivable 
that  there  should  be  afoot  energies  other  than  scholastic. 
You  can  imagine  Trollope  writing  in  a  window  of  the 
straggling  High  Street  and  Jane  Austen  looking  about 
her  from  a  pony-chaise.  An  old-time  doctor  with  a 
faith  in  simples,  a  rustic  parson  and  a  weather-beaten 
vendor  of  honeydew  and  bull's  eyes,  needles  and  string, 
were  all  our  notabilities.  The  town  is  silent  save  for 
the  babble  of  the  beck — we  are  in  Yorkshire — the  call- 
ing of  birds  in  the  high  wood  and  the  remote  stir  from 
the  cricket  field.  The  place  has  a  fine  incapacity  for 
change.  The  original  fifteenth-century  building,  so 
like  the  woodcuts  in  the  historv  book,  is  still  used  for 
a  carpenter's  shop,  and  the  churchyard's  old  graves,  too 
old  even  to  be  cared  for,  are  the  only  indication  of  the 
passing  of  time.    Exquisites  lorgnetting  the  devastating 


RESPONSIBILITY  79 

inscription  were  out  of  place  here;  this  is  the  haunt 
of  honest  boyhood,  let  the  jaded  keep  their  distance. 

My  father  with  his  usual  tact  refrained  from,  show- 
ing himself  too  much  with  me.  He  deposited  me  at  the 
porter's  lodge,  shook  hands  with  the  Headmaster  as 
man  to  man,  and  vanished.  It  was  not  until  later  that 
I  discovered  that  he  must  have  kicked  his  heels  about 
the  sleepy  village  for  five  or  six  hours. 

"New  boys  will  assemble  in  the  Headmaster's  study 
at  half-past  five,"  announced  the  porter. 

The  hour  was  well  turned  and  I  was  still  in  the 
cricket  field  watching  a  swarthy  youth,  Westrom,  the 
fast  bowler,  sending  down  corkers  to  a  modest  young 
giant  who  was  none  other  than  Eastwood,  the  captain 
of  the  first  eleven.  There  were  not  many  boys  "up," 
the  presence  of  the  two  cracks  determined  by  the  ab- 
solute necessity  of  practice  before  the  match  with  Sed- 
leigh.  I  was  ordered  to  fag  out,  to  keep  my  eyes 
skinned,  and  to  send  'em  up  sharp.  Another  youngster 
similarly  occupied  was  Eastwood's  fag,  who  had  been 
ordered  by  his  master  to  present  himself  a  day  before 
his  time,  and  who  had  cheerfully  obeyed.  At  eleven 
years  of  age  it  is  indeed  better  to  be  fag  to  the  captain 
of  the  first  eleven  than  to  be  ruler  over  many  king- 
doms. Presently  Eastwood  gave  the  pads  to  Westrom, 
who  proceeded  to  smite  the  captain's  innocent  slows 
all  over  the  ground.  Once  he  sent  me  a  tremendous 
skier.  I  had  to  run  a  good  way,  but  I  judged  it  per- 
fectly, waited  without  fluster,  and  having  held  the 
catch  chucked  the  ball  up  with  studied  calm. 

"Not  bad  for  a  young  'un,"  said  Eastwood  conde- 
scendingly. "Let's  see  if  you  can  bowl.  Mind  you 
don't  send  any  to  leg,  or  you'll  have  to  fetch  'em,"  he 


80  RESPONSIBILITY 

added,  motioning  his  fag  to  long-off  and  going  behind 
the  stumps  to  talk  to  his  friend. 

As  I  took  my  jacket  off  to  bowl  six  o'clock  boomed 
out  on  the  schoolhouse  clock,  and  I  remembered  the 
call  to  the  Headmaster's  study.  My  heart  gave  a  great 
thump,  and  I  begged  leave  to  be  allowed  to  go.  Westrom 
heard  me  out  and  said  coolly:  "It's  too  late,  kid,  any- 
how.    So  trundle  'em  up  and  look  slippy." 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  obey.  I  didn't  bowl 
badly  and  Westrom  declared  I  had  him  out  twice,  once 
in  the  slips  and  once  at  cover. 

"I  want  a  left-hand  bowler  for  the  second  eleven," 
said  Eastwood,  "and  if  you  can  lick  this  kid  into  shape 
I'll  give  him  a  trial."  This  as  though  I  had  no  free- 
will in  the  matter. 

At  Big  School  next  morning,  immediately  after  pray- 
ers— at  which  we  were  arranged  in  order  of  juniority, 
new  boys  in  front,  then  the  little  boys,  and  so  on  ac- 
cording to  forms  to  the  seniors  at  the  back — I  heard  the 
Head  call  out  my  name  in  thunderous  accents. 

"Stand  up !"  the  awful  voice  continued,  "and  tell 
me  why  you  did  not  come  to  my  study  yesterday 
evening." 

Before  I  had  time  to  collect  my  senses  I  heard  Wes- 
trom's  deep  bass :  "I  am  responsible,  sir.  Marston  was 
bowling  to  me" — bowling,  not  fagging,  and  this  before 
the  whole  school — "and  I  overlooked  the  time.  It  was 
entirely  my  fault,  sir." 

The  matter  was  apologetic,  the  manner  uncompro- 
mising. 

To  which  the  Head :  "Very  good,  Westrom.  I  accept 
the  explanation.  Let  us  hope  that  we  shall  manage  to 
work  as  diligently  as  we  play.  Marston,  you  may  sit 
down." 


RESPONSIBILITY  81 

I  had  entered  the  room  a  new  boy,  and  I  came  out 
a  personality.  I  had  bowled  to  Westrom.  Next  day 
I  found  I  was  to  be  his  fag. 

But  I  am  not  writing  a  school  story,  still  less  a 
scenario  for  the  romantic  stage.  Nothing  could  have 
been  less  like  the  sentimentalising  of  a  Raffles  and  his 
Bunny  than  my  relations  with  Westrom.  The  fellow 
hated  the  idea  of  fagging,  and  his  principal  use  for  me 
was  to  swathe  me  in  pads  and  gloves,  batter  out  of 
recognition  my  remainder  body,  and  send  my  stumps 
flying.  Every  time  I  kept  them  intact  for  half-a-dozen 
overs  he  gave  me  sixpence,  with  the  result  that  after  a 
time  I  became  a  tolerable  bat.  At  the  end  of  term  he 
left  without  telling  me  where  his  home  was  or  exhibiting 
the  faintest  desire  to  continue  the  acquaintance.  I 
thought  him  a  moody,  violent  fellow.  He  had  no  knick- 
knacks  in  his  study,  where  he  lived  with  monkish  sim- 
plicity. At  school  I  learned  nothing  of  him,  and  when 
I  met  him  again  it  was  as  though  I  had  never  known 
him.  He  certainly  gave  no  promise  of  the  gentle, 
affectionate  creature  he  was  to  become. 

The  change  of  school  put  me  back  a  full  two  years. 
They  could  not  understand  at  TJpthorne  that  I  had  a 
considerable  amount  of  Virgil  and  no  Caesar,  nor  that 
I  could  be  fairly  advanced  in  French  and  German  and 
possess  not  a  ha'porth  of  Greek.  So  back  I  had  to  go 
to  the  Lower  Third,  and  I  had  the  sense  to  say  nothing 
about  having  decorated  an  Upper  Fifth.  Learning,  it 
seems,  is  of  variable  quality,  and  that  which  is  gold 
at  one  school  is  not  necessarily  currency  at  another. 
What  were  the  things  the  old  poet  confesses  to  having 
learned  during  his  three  years  at  Rome — to  avoid  ex- 
travagance and  gormandising,  to  humour  a  creditor  and 
to  keep  a  still  tongue  ?    Such,  slightly  modernised,  were 


82  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  limits  of  my  attainment  at  TJpthorne.  I  learned 
to  please  junior  masters  and  to  go  in  no  fear  of  the 
Head,  to  work  desperately  at  games  and  with  studied 
moderation  at  lessons,  to  smoke  a  pipe  with  an  air  of 
liking  it,  to  swear  as  becomes  a  young  gentleman  of 
parts,  to  steer  clear  of  sentiment. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  decide  how  far  our  school- 
masters are  honest  with  themselves.  Do  they  more 
urgently  desire  to  beat  their  sister-foundations  at  cricket 
and  football  or  to  fit  their  charges  for  the  battle  of 
existence  ?  I  have  never  met  a  Public  School  boy  who 
knew  his  commercial  right  hand  from  his  left,  or  the 
different  sides  of  an  account-book.  I  learned  nothing 
at  TJpthorne  which  would  have  enabled  me  to  keep  a 
grocery  store.  What  I  did  learn  was  the  charm  of 
evening  service  in  a  crowded  chapel,  the  lights  lowered 
and  the  Headmaster  talking  quietly.  I  came  to  realise 
that  the  Public  School  boy  turned  master  may  not  be 
half  so  good  a  teacher  as  the  bright  Board  School  youth 
commencing  usher,  but  that  if  he  be  the  right  sort  he 
will  have  something  to  say  worth  listening  to  when  he 
asks  you  to  cocoa  after  prayers.  More  cynical  things 
I  learned  too.  I  learned  to  acquiesce  in  the  giving  of 
the  good  conduct  prize  to  an  anaemic,  consumptive- 
looking  youth  without  energy  for  vice,  who  looked  as 
though  he  could  never  survive  the  term  but  always  did, 
and  is  now  a  highly  successful  manipulator  of  rubber 
shares.  I  learned  the  meaning  of  irony  when  Illing- 
worth  ma.,  the  head  of  the  school,  commonly  known  a3 
"Pi,"  a  fellow  of  stupendous  intellect  and  microscopic 
appetite,  asked  for  a  second  helping  of  pudding.  With 
ironic  gusto  the  Headmaster  gave  the  school  a  half  holi- 
day in  honour  of  the  event,  and  proposing  a  match 
Masters  versus  Boys,  went  in  first  himself  and  absent- 


RESPONSIBILITY  83 

mindedly  stayed  at  the  wicket  the  whole  afternoon. 
They  put  Illingworth  ma.  at  extra-slip,  where  he  never 
handled  a  ball,  and  the  boys  did  not  bat.  I  knew  aston- 
ishment when,  after  the  accident  to  Tuffnel  ma.,  Tuffnel 
mi.  came  into  prayers  with  a  Bible;  and  the  meaning 
of  loss  when  Caulfield,  the  butt  of  the  school,  died  dur- 
ing an  epidemic  of  fever. 

§  viii 

For  three  years  I  stayed  at  TJpthorne,  and  then  my 
father  died.  In  the  sad  time  which  followed  my  main 
support  was  my  cousin,  Monica.  Have  I  described 
her  ?  If  I  were  indifferent  to  the  reader's  good  opinion 
I  had  long  ago  attempted  a  portrait.  But  I  want  you 
to  take  to  her,  oh,  to  take  to  her  immensely,  and  I  can- 
not afford  a  failure.  Monica  possessed  a  passion  for 
sturdy  loyalty;  she  could  question,  doubt,  condemn, 
but  she  understood  the  meaning  of  friendship  in  the 
schoolboy,  thick-and-thin  interpretation  of  the  term. 
Most  of  us  are  incapable  of  anything  finer  than  that 
poor  passion  which  will  go  back  on  the  man  who  re- 
veals himself  to  be  other  than  his  friend  had  thought 
him.  Of  such  speciousness  Monica  was  supremely  in- 
capable :  she  was  your  friend  to  the  prison  gate  if  need 
be. 

It  was  Monica  who  first  gave  me  news  of  the  serious 
state  of  my  father's  health.  Her  letter  was  not  in  the 
croaking  vein,  though  the  warning  was  undeniable. 

"I  thought  Uncle  James  looked  a  little  better  yes- 
terday, but  he  is  very  thin.  He  pinched  my  cheek  and 
called  me  his  mouse,  his  brown  velvet  mouse.  I  was 
wearing  the  frock  you  like  so  much.  Then  he  looked 
out  of  the  window  for  quite  a  long  time.     'Mind  you 


84  RESPONSIBILITY 

tell  Ned  how  much  stronger  I  am  getting/  he  said. 
It  really  tires  him  to  walk  at  all,  but  he  pretends  to  be 
active.  Dad  says  that  no  man  can  count  on  living  for 
ever,  and  that  the  Almighty  can't  be  expected  to  make 
exceptions.    I  can't  always  understand  Dad.  .  .  ." 

One  morning  I  was  sent  for  to  the  Headmaster's 
study,  where  I  found  the  old  man  standing  by  the  win- 
dow with  an  open  letter  in  his  hand.  He  looked  at  me 
kindly  and  spoke  gravely. 

"I  have  to  tell  you  that  your  father  is  ill,"  he  said. 
"Very  ill.  In  fact  I  judge  from  your  uncle's  letter  that 
it  may  be  necessary  for  you  to  return  home  at  any  mo- 
ment. You  had  better  get  your  box  packed  in  readiness. 
You  can  have  the  rest  of  the  day  to  yourself.  I  will 
send  the  school  porter  to  Mr  "Williams  to  say  that  you 
will  be  absent  for  the  remainder  of  the  lesson." 

I  do  not  remember  that  I  said  a  word. 

I  left  the  room,  a  little  dazed  if  you  will,  but  entirely 
without  the  sense  of  apprehension.  It  all  seemed  un- 
real, and  besides  any  event  which  breaks  the  monotony 
of  school  is  an  adventure.  Is  this  ghastly,  inhuman? 
I  hope  it  is  a  trick  of  the  brain.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
at  prayers  that  night  I  looked  self-conscious  enough. 
With  the  following  morning  came  my  uncle,  and  I  was 
at  once  sent  for.  Reuben  gave  me  a  glance  of  civil 
commiseration,  and  tendered  a  fish-like  projection  of 
black  glove.  As  he  was  always  a  little  formal  and 
prone  to  ceremony  at  any  launching  of  himself  into 
speech,  I  had  time  to  choose  my  ground.  I  said,  and 
the  words  sounded  stilted  even  in  my  own  ears : 

"I  am  glad  to  see  you,  Uncle  Reuben,  though  I  must 
suppose  you  bring  bad  news." 

I  had  found  myself  debating  the  alternative  values 


RESPONSIBILITY  85 

of  "must  suppose"  and  "cannot  but  suppose."  The  read- 
er will  probably  put  me  down  as  an  unconscionable  prig. 
Maybe.  To  be  bereft  of  speech  is  one  thing,  to  talk  like 
a  sloven  is  another.  Even  the  wretch  turned  off  the 
gallows  may  be  forgiven  for  using  English  until  speech 
is  choked  out  of  him. 

I  added  almost  immediately :  "If  my  father  is  dead, 
please  say  so." 

With  a  good  deal  of  well-simulated  emotion  and  some 
lengthy  circumlocution  my  uncle  brought  himself  to 
the  simple  admission.  Reuben  was  at  all  times  a  rich 
spectacle,  but  he  excelled  himself  that  morning.  I  do 
not  think  that  alone  with  me  he  would  have  been  at 
more  than  perfunctory  pains ;  at  lunch  in  the  additional 
presence  of  the  Headmaster's  wife  and  daughters  his 
windy  suspirations  were  those  of  the  mummer  on  grand 
occasion.  I  suppose  the  meal  may  be  said  to  have  passed 
off  well.  We  were  driven  to  the  station  in  the  doctor's 
pony-carriage,  my  uncle  bestowing  a  handsome  five 
shillings  on  the  boy  who  drove  us. 

Comfortably  settled  in  a  corner  seat  with  his  back  to 
the  engine,  the  window  adjusted  to  his  liking  and  a  cigar 
well  alight,  Reuben  proceeded  to  open  the  little  black 
bag  from  which  he  was  never  separated.  It  is  here  to 
be  remarked  that  if  the  old  fox  was  never  to  be  seen 
without  the  bag  he  was  never  to  be  seen  with  an  um- 
brella. He  was  clever  enough  and  sufficiently  well  read 
in  his  Dickens  to  know  an  umbrella  to  be  the  classical 
property  of  the  humbug,  and  he  fought  deliberately  shy 
of  the  treacherous  indication.  I  insist  on  this  as  evi- 
dence that  my  uncle  was  worth  crossing  swords  with; 
he  was  no  puny  whipster  in  deceit. 

Reuben  then  drew  out  of  the  bag  a  heterogeneous 
assortment  of  papers.     First  a  number  of  reports  of 


86  RESPONSIBILITY 

directors'  meetings  which  he  had  not  attended  but  for 
which  he  had  drawn  the  fees.  Then  a  cheerful  docu- 
ment setting  forth  the  advantages  of  cremation  and 
ornamented  with  tasteful  compartmental  drawings  on 
the  lines  of  safe-deposits.  The  compiler  of  the  brochure, 
a  genius  if  ever  there  was  one,  had  contrived  to  bring 
together  the  phrase  "God's  Acre"  and  a  design  in  ad- 
mirable perspective  of  something  that  looked  like  a  fac- 
tory chimney  in  marble.  Then  a  crowd  of  other  papers, 
among  which  I  detected  the  annual  reports  of  half-a- 
dozen  industrial  schools  and  penitentiary  establish- 
ments, the  rota  of  the  County  Police  Court  with  my 
uncle's  turn  of  service  marked  in  red  ink,  subscription 
lists  of  the  Society  for  the  Dissemination  of  the  Natural 
Virtues  of  which  he  was  chairman,  and  the  British  and 
Foreign  Parable  Elucidation  Society  of  which  he  was 
president.  A  lecture  on  banking,  a  memorandum  ap- 
pertaining to  the  Tolerated  Houses  of  Calcutta  with 
some  notes  on  the  Overcrowding  of  Bazaars  (India)  by 
the  Bishop  of  St  Eurasia's,  Stepney.  I  am  not  going 
to  pretend  that  my  uncle  ever  read  any  of  this  nonsense ; 
he  liked  to  frame  himself  in  it,  to  litter  railway  car- 
riages with  it.  He  travelled  it  as  salesmen  travel  their 
samples. 

"I  think,  my  boy,"  he  began,  "that  it  would  take 
your  mind  off  the  sad  event  if  we  were  to  have  a  little 
Serious  Talk.  Yesterday  you  were  a  boy  in  years; 
to-day  you  are  a  man  in  responsibility.  I  have  here 
an  Agreement  which  your  father  and  I  drew  up  some 
months  ago.  I  think  that  even  then  he  must  have  been 
conscious  that  Death's  fell  hand " 

Here  he  brought  himself  to  a  sudden  stop.  I  suppose 
lie  saw  that  he  was  wasting  a  good  phrase.  He  coughed 
and  went  on : 


RESPONSIBILITY  87 

"The  arrangement  is  more  or  less  informal.  No 
one  had  greater  confidence  in  me  than  your  father; 
no  one  has  ever  known  me  better  than  your  father.  He 
knew  that  my  Word  was  better  than  my  Bond.  But 
we  had  several  long  and  rather  involved  talks  together, 
which  I  suggested  might  be  conveniently  reduced  to 
writing.  Your  father  concurred.  Not  that  a  Written 
Agreement  is  more  binding  than  a  Verbal.  On  the 
Contrary." 

I  must  apologise  for  the  use  of  capital  letters,  but 
I  can  find  no  other  means  of  expressing  the  shade  of 
unction  my  uncle  threw  into  his  voice.  When  he  talked 
so  you  felt  that  he  preached  at  you,  that  his  arms 
emerged  from  lawn  sleeves,  that  he  was  in  the  pulpit. 

"This  Agreement,"  he  went  on,  tapping  the  docu- 
ment with  a  gold  pencil  and  the  loving  pride  of  an 
artist  considering  his  handicraft,  "is  an  agreement  for 
partnership.  It  provides  for  the  entry  into  partnership 
with  your  father  and  me,  or  the  survivor  of  us,  of  his 
son  and  mine,  so  soon  as  you  shall  both  have  attained 
the  age  of  twenty-five  years." 

I  do  not  propose  to  give  a  verbatim  account  of  the 
Deed.  It  was  conceived  in  Reuben's  best  vein,  and  to 
it  he  had  devoted  the  most  flowing  of  his  copper-plate. 
I  believe  that  if  he  had  not  been  afraid  of  my  father's 
mockery  he  would  have  fastened  little  red  seals  all  over 
it.  The  provisions  were  made  mutatis  mutandis,  it  be- 
ing one  of  Reuben's  foibles  to  garnish  his  speech  with 
technical  tags  of  uncertain  application.  In  other  words 
the  agreement  was  to  hold  good  whichever  of  the  broth- 
ers-in-law died  first.  Can't  you  see  him  expatiating 
to  the  dying  man  on  the  obvious  fairness  of  such  an  ar- 
rangement ?  In  case  of  my  father  dying  my  uncle  was 
to  act  as  my  guardian  until  such  time  as  I  should  attain 


88  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  age  of  twenty-five.  Until  this  date  my  father's 
capital  was  to  remain  in  the  firm  for  the  firm's  use  and 
advantage,  my  uncle  to  be  paid  for  my  keep  two  hun- 
dred pounds  a  year  out  of  the  interest,  which  was  to  be 
at  the  rate  of  five  per  cent,  the  balance  to  accrue  for  my 
benefit.  As  soon  as  I  left  school  I  was  to  work  for  the 
firm  at  a  salary  of  one  hundred  pounds  a  year  with 
yearly  increases  of  fifty  pounds.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
five,  my  capital,  which  now  stood  at  some  twelve 
thousand  pounds,  was  to  be  paid  out  to  me,  and  I  was 
then  to  have  the  option  of  entering  the  firm  in  partner- 
ship with  my  uncle  and  cousin  at  a  fourth  share. 

I  suppose  the  agreement  was  as  fair  as  most  legal 
agreements,  although  I  hold  that  partnerships  between 
honest  men  need  be  verbal  only.  Not  so  any  partner- 
ship of  Uncle  Eeuben's.  His  to  safeguard  and  fore- 
stall, to  make  provision  against  the  possibility  of  latter- 
day  floods  and  the  eventuality  of  second  comings.  The 
present  document  was  verbose,  in  adominable  English, 
tiresome  and  meandering,  but  it  never  wandered  far 
from  the  main  point,  which  was  the  ease  and  security 
of  the  Surviving  Partner.  And  Keuben  intended  to  be 
that  Surviving  Partner.  One  of  the  clauses  provided 
that  whichever  should  survive  should  have  the  right, 
as  soon  as  both  young  men  had  got  properly  into  harness, 
to  squat  him  down  on  his  hams  in  idleness,  and  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  draw  half  the  profits  of  the  concern. 

"Of  course,"  said  my  uncle  lightly  and  without 
stress,  "it  is  understood  that  these  presents  may  be  ren- 
dered null  and  void" — how  lovingly  did  he  lick  his 
villainous  old  chops  over  the  legal-sounding  phrase — ■ 
"by  misconduct,  moral  lapse  and  so  forth,  on  the  part 
of  the  younger  parties,  which  might  in  the  opinion  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  89 

the  surviving  partner  be  detrimental  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  concern." 

"Of  course,"  I  answered  vaguely. 

"A  copy  of  the  agreement  will  be  supplied  to  you  in 
due  course." 

I  learnt  that  I  was  to  go  to  my  uncle's  until  after  the 
funeral.  On  the  way  home  we  called  at  the  office  that 
Reuben  might  accomplish  the  solemn  function  known 
as  signing  the  letters. 

I  followed  him  through  the  crowd  of  clerks,  salesmen, 
porters  and  errand-boys,  all  shabbily  dressed  and  with 
that  unmistakable  expression  which  comes  from  too 
much  striving  to  make  ends  meet.  To  fail  may  lead 
to  a  fine  despair;  barely  to  succeed  and  to  keep  on 
barely  succeeding  is  a  dull  business.  The  old  cashier, 
too  typical  of  old  cashiers  to  need  describing,  took  my 
hand  in  both  of  his  and,  again  in  character,  said : 

"Man  and  boy,  I've  served  your  father  for  forty  years. 
I'm  terribly  grieved  and  upset,  Mr  Edward;  so  are 
we  all.  The  staff  and  self  feel  deeply  for  you,  sir, 
deeply.    We  hear  you  are  to  be  in  Mr  Reuben's  care." 

I  turned  away  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  cry- 
ing. 

The  outward  show  of  grief  is  the  affair  of  the  ner- 
vous organism  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  grief  itself. 
How  many  tears  have  I  shed  over  Margery's  nursery 
tales,  how  easily  do  I  weep  now  over  some  sentimental 
page!  And  yet  it  needed  this  old  retainer's  emotion 
to  give  the  cue  to  mine.  I  had  not  till  that  moment 
shed  a  tear. 

§  ix 

After  the  reading  of  the  will  I  returned  to  the  old 
home  which  I  had  not  seen  since  the  previous  holidays. 


90  RESPONSIBILITY 

I  found  the  house  swept  and  garnished,  a  cheerful  fire 
burning  in  the  study,  and  old  Margery  waiting  to  re- 
ceive me  in  sober  black  though  with  an  air  of  being 
steeled  to  a  reasonable  mournfulness. 

"It's  good  to  see  you,  Mr  Edward,"  she  said  with 
calm,  and  refraining  from  lamentation.  Yes,  she  had 
been  admirably  drilled,  I  doubted  not  by  whom. 

"Your  father  told  me  to  give  you  this,"  holding  out  a 
bulky  envelope.  "There's  a  good  fire  in  the  study  and 
I'll  send  tea  in  shortly." 

She  lingered  a  minute,  and  then  with  some  hesita- 
tion : 

"I'm  glad  you  take  it  so  quietly,  Master  Ned.  You're 
very  like  your  father." 

"Why  don't  you  say  'your  poor  father'  like  every- 
body else  ?"  I  couldn't  help  asking.  I  felt  I  must  know 
why  she  abandoned  the  traditional  formula. 

"I  was  left  particular  instructions,"  she  replied. 
"  You  are  to  speak  of  me  to  Master  Edward  as  I 
have  taught  you  to  speak  of  your  mistress.  As  little 
black  as  possible  and  no  fuss.'  "  And  with  that  she 
retired  into  her  pantry. 

I  went  into  the  study,  sat  down  at  my  father's  desk 
and  examined  the  packet  which  was  addressed  "To 
my  son,  Edward  Marston.  To  be  opened  after  my 
death."  Taking  up  the  big  ivory  paper-knife,  I  slit 
the  envelope  open  and  found  inside  a  lengthy  docu- 
ment of  which  the  remarkableness  were  lost  unless  my 
father's  simplicity  and  incapacity  for  pose  be  given 
full  value.    It  was  dated  some  four  months  earlier. 

My  dear  Edward, — When  you  read  this 

Je  seray  sous  la  terre,  et,  fantosme  sans  os, 
Par  lea  ombres  myrteux  je  prendray  mon  repos. 


RESPONSIBILITY  91 

I  use  the  French  to  arouse  your  literary  instinct  and 
so  counterbalance  any  excess  of  emotion  you  may  have 
in  opening  my  letter.  By  the  way  "myrtled  shades" 
would  not  be  a  really  good  translation  of  ombres  myr- 
teux.  It  is  too  literal  and  perhaps  too  poetic.  It  is  a 
sound  rule  in  poetry  to  avoid  the  poetic.  Ronsard  is 
the  author ;  it  is  not  a  rare  quotation. 

But  my  object  in  writing  is  not  to  give  you  a  lecture 
on  French  poetry,  but  a  hint  or  two  about  life,  and 
what  is  even  more  important,  about  your  uncle.  Life, 
my  dear  boy,  has  only  two  aspects  worth  considering. 
One  is  the  life  you  lead  to  yourself,  the  other  is  the 
part  played  by  money.  Remember  always  to  keep  your- 
self to  yourself,  as  the  servants  say.  Or  if  you  cannot 
lock  up  your  heart  entirely,  choose  a  friend — it  had  bet- 
ter be  a  man — and  give  it  into  his  keeping.  But  don't 
at  your  peril  wear  it  on  your  sleeve.  Remember  that 
your  intimate  joys  and  sorrows  are  necessarily  a  bore 
to  the  rest  of  the  world.  You  lose  your  dog  and  a 
hundred  amateurs  will  condole  with  you,  your  loss  af- 
fording them  occasion  to  show  off  their  dog-lore.  Do 
not  confound.  The  world  is  honest  enough  to  refrain 
from  selling  dogs ;  it  is  too  vain  not  to  talk  dog.  You 
suffer  bereavement  in  a  graver  sense  and  you  become 
a  nuisance.  The  men  at  your  club  hesitate  to  crack 
jokes  in  your  presence;  they  wonder  whether  they 
have  accomplished  the  rigmarole  proper  to  the  occa- 
casion.  Did  I  ever  tell  you  of  the  old  German  Jew's 
recipe  for  condolence?  You  put  on  a  hang-dog  air 
and  recite  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  under  your  breath 
as  fast  as  you  can.  It  is  very  impressive,  it  seems.  You 
will  nearly  always  find  a  Jew  to  be  more  amusing  than 
a  Christian.  For  one  thing  he  is  generally  so  very 
much  more  intelligent.     Note,  by  the  way,  that  the 


92  RESPONSIBILITY 

only  tolerable  Germans  are  Hamburg  Jews.     If  only 
they  could  forget  Bismarck  what  a  delightful  race  they 

would  be! 

In  all  that  you  really  live  for,  then,  you  live  alone. 
We  are  a  shamefaced  people  and  our  deepest  interests 
are  matter  for  silence.  To  discuss  religion  is  to  behave 
as  a  boor.  To  talk  music  or  literature  is  unprofitable- 
ness. Politics,  by  which  we  mean  party  politics  .  .  . 
Faugh !  I  advise  you  to  learn  some  conversational  tags, 
shooting,  horses,  women.  Remember  that  "trade  fol- 
lows the  flag,"  on  condition  that  it  doesn't  precede  it 
You  will  be  dining  principally  in  Manchester. 

Apart  from  your  inner  life  the  only  other  thing  that 
matters  is  money.  This  is  not  cynicism,  but  intellectual 
honesty.  Your  uncle,  despite  his  rapacity,  has  always 
had  enough  money  to  keep  him  out  of  gaol.  To  a  poor 
man  genius  such  as  his  would  have  been  an  immense 
danger.  He  has  never  forgiven  me  for  not  consenting 
to  invest  Aunt  Windsor's  money  in  the  business,  there- 
by liberating  enough  capital  to  secure  us  a  controlling 
interest  in  old  Buckley's  Mill.  You  know  they  paid 
forty  per  cent,  for  over  ten  years  and  are  still  doing 
well.  We  should  have  made  a  fortune,  and  in  view 
of  your  uncle's  wonderful  flair  for  a  good  thing  there 
was  little  or  no  risk.  In  this  matter  of  money  I  shall 
leave  you  moderately  well  off,  and  ultimately  rather 
more  than  a  quarter  share  in  a  good  business.  I  trust 
I  have  done  wisely  in  tying  up  your  money  and  binding 
you  to  your  uncle  till  you  are  twenty-five.  If  ever  you 
want  to  marry,  what  I  shall  leave  you  will  be  enough.  If 
you  don't,  you  will  find  the  amount  handsomely  inade- 
quate !  The  world  is  a  big  place  to  have  the  bachelor  run 
of.  As  an  honest  man  you  will  always  have  plenty ;  as 
a  ne'er-do-weel  you  will  always  be  in  difficulties.     Re- 


RESPONSIBILITY  93 

member  that  whatever  the  men  you  meet  may  be  talking, 
they  are  always  thinking  money.  It  is  their  lodestar, 
their  mainspring,  what  you  will.  My  advice  to  you  is  to 
stick  to  honesty;  it  is  the  only  way  by  which  you  can 
circumvent  your  uncle.  His  whole  life  is  devoted  to 
setting  snares  for  others  and  in  countering  the  cunning 
schemes  which  he  imagines  the  whole  world  to  have 
on  foot  against  him.  Some  years  ago,  an  Assyrian  cus- 
tomer of  ours  called  at  the  office  saying  that  he  was 
about  to  take  a  trip  to  his  native  land  and  begging  to 
introduce  the  fellow  who  was  to  represent  him  during 
his  absence.  After  I  had  bowed  them  out  the  old  Cru- 
sader came  back  alone,  half  opened  the  door,  insinuated 
his  head  and  putting  one  finger  to  his  nose  whispered 
confidentially:  "He  is  my  partner.  Do  not  trust  him!" 
Some  day  your  Uncle  Reuben  will  be  your  partner. 

And  now,  my  dear  boy,  I  have  to  talk  to  you  of  an- 
other matter,  not  in  a  more  serious  strain,  perhaps, 
but  in  a  different  one.  I  will  not  agree  that  the  end  of 
my  life  is  a  more  serious  matter  than  the  beginning 
of  yours.     It  is  a  different  one,  that  is  all. 

Not  to  beat  about  the  bush,  the  doctors  do  not  give 
me  long.  I  am  grieved  for  your  sake ;  I  am  more  an- 
noyed than  frightened  for  my  own.  I  have  found  the 
world  an  intensely  interesting  place  and  I  cannot  say 
that  I  possess  anything  that  can  be  technically  termed 
faith.  ...  It  would  be  the  normal  and  proper  thing  for 
me  to  tell  you  that  I  am  going  to  join  your  mother; 
I  do  not  know;  I  feel  no  certainty.  Suppose  I  had 
been  married  twice?  I  can  say  in  complete  honesty 
that  she  is  my  bulwark  against  fear.  What  she  has 
suffered  I  can  suffer.  I  hope  I  am  not  afraid.  ...  I  am 
conscious  that  this  is  nonsense.  Of  course  I  am  afraid. 
I  have  the  most  preposterous  fears,  fear  of  an  infinity 


94  RESPONSIBILITY 

of  lonely  wakefulness  in  the  dark  of  our  smallest  prison. 
The  idea  of  oppression  frightens  me,  the  tight  lid  and 
the  vile,  sinister  shape.  I  fight  for  air.  And  then  with 
an  effort  I  force  myself  to  remember  that  whatever  ter- 
rors may  be  in  store  they  cannot  be  the  terrors  of  the 
earth.  I  am  not  afraid  of  viewless  winds  or  thick- 
ribbed  ice.  I  am  afraid  of  negation,  of  not  being. 
"What  most  I  prize,  it  ne'er  was  mine,"  runs  the  hymn. 
I  cannot  bring  myself  to  Christian  resignation.  What 
father  would  endow  his  child  with  all  that  delicate 
machinery  of  appreciation  only  to  take  it  away  when 
delight  was  at  its  fullest  ?  But  I  forget  that  philosophy 
has  decided  that  the  First  Cause  may  very  well  be 
ignorant  of  the  humaner  feelings,  that  the  whole  may 
be  less  charitable  than  its  part. 

I  think  perhaps  the  Shakespearean  "inevitable"  view 
is  the  best.     I  will  copy  the  passage  for  you: 

"By  my  troth,  I  care  not ;  a  man  can  die  but  once ; 
we  owe  God  a  death.  I'll  ne'er  bear  a  base  mind; 
an't  be  my  destiny,  so;  an't  be  not,  so.  No  man's  too 
good  to  serve's  prince ;  and  let  it  go  which  way  it  will, 
he  that  dies  this  year  is  quit  for  the  next." 

Note  that  Shakespeare  was  so  rich  that  he  could  af- 
ford to  squander  this  jewel  on  a  woman's  tailor.  Like 
Feeble  I'll  ne'er  bear  a  base  mind.  And  then  there 
is  the  other  view;  the  view  that  I  might  have  lived 
too  long;  lived  to  see  you  unhappy.  You  will  realise 
that  I  have  made  provision  of  all  the  comfortable  tags. 

I  am  convinced  that  if  anybody  is  in  the  right  about 
heaven,  since  it  cannot  be  the  parsons  it  must  be  the 
poets.  I  would  allow  no  parson  to  preach  unless  he 
could   first   scrape   through   a   simple   examination   in 


RESPONSIBILITY  95 

Darwin,  Huxley  and  Herbert  Spencer.  A  loose-living 
clergyman  is  unfrocked ;  why  not  a  loose-thinking  one  ? 
I  remember  many  years  ago  being  in  a  crowded  street 
when  a  thunderstorm  of  great  fury  broke  over  us.  A 
brewer's  dray  went  past  on  which  was  sitting  an  old,  old 
man,  who  fell  off  into  the  road.  I  remember  that  the 
whirling  of  the  storm  was  such  that  it  obliterated  the 
human  bundle.  I  have  often  thought  that  the  whole  of 
our  world  may  be  some  such  unconsidered  bundle  hur- 
rying to  obliteration.  The  Church  does  not  seem  to  be 
aware  that  we  are  moving  through  space  at  some  con- 
siderable speed.  !Nor  has  it  ever  proved  that  the  Su- 
preme Force  which  is  responsible  for  human  compunc- 
tion has  consciousness  of  that  quality. 

There  is  a  kindly  belief  that  as  the  body  wears  out 
the  spirit  wears  out  also.  Do  not  believe  this.  I  shall 
die  with  my  spirit  awake  and  my  eyes  open. 

My  great  hope,  my  boy,  is  in  you.  I  trust  you  will 
not  hear  in  these  simple  words  that  cant  which  is  to 
me  of  all  sounds  the  most  distressful.  I  cannot  under- 
stand the  dissenting  chapel.  I  realise  that  there  may 
be  good  in  the  habit  of  Sunday  debate  with  a  chairman 
to  keep  order,  but  do  not  let  us  confuse  that  with  wor- 
ship. You  cannot  worship  a  being  and  argue  about  his 
existence  and  conditioning  at  the  same  time.  I  have, 
as  you  know,  attended  churches  of  all  denominations 
and  found  the  proper  atmosphere  of  worship — pagan 
in  the  sense  of  adulation  without  understanding — in  the 
Roman  Church  alone.  I  have  overcome  my  dislike  to 
the  flummery  of  untidy  priests,  obviously  thinking  of 
anything  except  their  devotions.  I  have  forced  myself 
to  see  a  symbol  of  the  sublime  in  the  tinsel  and  putty 
of  an  image.  There  I  have  been  able  to  worship,  al- 
though it  has  meant  relinquishing  the  faculty  of  rea- 


96  RESPONSIBILITY 

soning.  I  sometimes  fear  that  prayer  is  not  more  than 
a  cowardly  desire  to  be  on  the  right  side,  Primus  in  orbe 
Deos  fecit  timor,  you  know. 

In  my  reasoning  mood,  when  my  nerves  are  steadier, 
I  repeat  that  my  great  hope  is  in  you.  You  are  my 
immortality.  There  is  much  in  the  universe  that  is 
arguable,  but  there  is,  fortunately,  much  also  which 
is  undeniable.  And  the  least  deniable  of  all  things 
is  the  great  thrust  of  Nature  towards  life,  towards  ever 
more  and  more  life.  This  may  not  be  more  than  com- 
pensation for  the  death  and  decay  going  on  around 
us,  but  whatever  the  reason,  the  desire  and  thrust  are 
there.  Now  I  am  a  man  of  business  and  have  never  be- 
lieved in  the  possibility  of  getting  something  for  noth- 
ing. The  price  of  life  is  the  obligation  to  confer  life 
in  our  turn.  Remember  that  I  am  part  of  you  for  ever, 
and  that  when  you  too  are  a  father,  you  will  be  part 
of  your  son  for  ever.  The  obligation  to  live  decently 
is  obvious. 

[There  was  a  slight  break  in  the  letter  and  then,  in 
firmer  writing:] 

I  am  in  altogether  better  spirits  to-day  and  ready 
to  stare  the  old  bogey  out  of  countenance.  What  I 
chiefly  feel  is  the  regret  that  so  fine  and  complex  a  piece 
of  machinery  as  the  human  body  should  be  capable  of 
wearing  out.    I  have  felt  the  same  about  old  looms. 

But  I  will  not  have  Portwood.  Anybody  else,  but 
not  that  unctuous  ruffian.  I  detest  Portwood.  I  detest 
his  walk,  his  Stygian  cheerfulness,  his  mourning  rings, 
his  double  chins.     He  is  Micawber  pris  au  serieux. 

He  too  has  a  roll  in  his  voice  and  it  makes  me  shud- 
der.   He  would  weep  black  tears  and  he  could.    I  have 


RESPONSIBILITY  97 

seen  too  much  of  Portwood.  In  my  capacity  of  executor 
I  have  had  acquaintance  of  him  in  his  sanctum.  We 
have  turned  over  catalogues  together,  compared  head- 
stones, appraised  caskets.  I  have  heard  him  hold  forth 
on  the  superior  advantages  of  four  horses.  "Not  that 
a  pair  of  our  blacks  is  not  up  to  the  job.  Quite  the 
reverse.  But  there  are  families  in  which  four  horses 
have  always  run,  and  four  horses  are  four  horses  after 
all.  They  give  the  ceremony  an  air."  Had  I  the  knack 
I  would  put  him  into  a  comedy;  I  have  no  objection 
to  comic  undertakers.  There's  a  precedent,  and  it  isn't 
as  though  we  hadn't  the  actors.  There's  Kemble,  who 
would  be  rich  and  loam-y,  and  Neville,  who  would  give 
him  the  grand  air  of  one  of  his  own  cavalcades.  Port- 
wood's  an  exquisite,  you  know.  But  then  I've  seen  him 
off  duty,  one  with  his  kind.  It  was  at  a  railway  sta- 
tion. Incredibly  he  proposed  a  "nip,"  and  I  accepted 
out  of  sheer  nervousness.  ~No,  I  will  not  have  Port- 
wood. 

A  father  who  cracks  jokes  from  the  other  side !  "En 
voila  du  comique!  Allans,  il  faut  savoir  se  tenir  tran- 
quille  dans  sa  tombe." 

A  very  gentle  essayist  whom  I  have  heard  you  dis- 
parage— but  you  will  live  to  repent — asks  whether  irony 
itself  can  be  one  of  the  things  that  go  out  with  life. 
"Can  a  ghost  laugh,  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides,  when  you 
are  pleasant  with  him  ?"  I  like  to  think  that  you,  my 
boy,  and  I  may  still  laugh  together. 

I  have  little  to  say  to  you  of  last  things.  I  prefer 
to  think  that  all  that  matters  has  been  implied  while  we 
were  together. 

It  is  finished.    Barka!  as  the  Arabs  say. 

Your  affectionate  father, 

James  Makston. 


98  RESPONSIBILITY 

By  his  will  my  father  left  my  mother's  watch  and  a 
thousand  pounds  to  Monica,  a  hundred  a  year  to  old 
Margery,  and  all  his  other  personal  effects,  which  were 
few,  to  me,  with  a  recommendation  to  sell  the  house 
and  furniture  and  so  avoid  sentimental  embarrassments. 
I  carried  out  his  wishes  strictly,  keeping  nothing  except 
the  Keighley  books. 

"I  suppose  I  shall  not  go  back  to  school  till  after 
the  holidays?"  I  said  to  my  uncle  a  day  or  two  later. 

"You  are  not  going  back  to  school  at  all,"  he  replied 
gravely.  "The  age  comes  to  all  of  us  when  we  must 
put  away  Childish  Things.  You  are  no  longer  a  child 
and  there  is  work  awaiting  you.  We  must  all  of  us 
Work,  Work  while  it  is  yet  Day." 


CHAPTER  II 


Si 


MUCH  has  been  written  about  the  difficulty  of 
the  dramatic  form,  not  enough  of  its  con- 
venience. The  dramatist  is  free  to  bring  the 
curtain  down  on  the  most  desperate  of  plights  from 
which  no  issue  is  humanly  conceivable,  to  raise  it  again 
upon  the  most  careless  of  triumphs.  He  is  not  to  con- 
cern himself  with  ways  and  means,  with  that  trifling 
matter  of  ocean  fares.  The  bankrupt  sets  sail,  the 
millionaire  returns.  Et  voila!  C'est  simple  comme  bon 
jour!  I  would  not  begrudge  the  playwright  his  arbi- 
trary slashings  were  he  to  confine  them  to  knots  strictly 
Gordian ;  it  is  the  frivolous,  unnecessary  curtains  I  am 
jealous  of,  bringing  to  violent  ends  scenes  untieable  by 
a  simple  stroke  of  common-sense. 

I  am  going  to  take  a  leaf  out  of  the  dramatist's  book. 

I  am  going  to  pass  over  the  few  weeks  of  grace  which 
preceded  my  plunge  into  the  whirlpool  of  business. 
They  were  weeks  in  which  nothing  happened  except 
that  I  acquired  a  wider  experience  of  the  characters  of 
my  newly  adopted  family.  One  of  the  most  discon- 
certing of  discoveries  is  that  the  more  you  know  of 
people  the  less  easy  it  is  to  go  on  disliking  them.  My 
cousin  Geoffrey  always  excepted. 

Geoffrey  Torkington  Ackroyd — my  aunt  was  a  Miss 
Torkington — was  short-sighted  and  red-haired  to  the 
extent  in  which  these  physical  defects  encroach  upon 

99 


100  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  moral.  He  was  boorish  in  manner  and  hesitant 
of  speech,  combining  a  singular  dullness  of  apprehen- 
sion with  an  extreme  degree  of  contempt  for  the  in- 
telligence of  others.  He  bit  his  nails.  His  allowance 
of  dress  money  being  less  than  mine  and  the  two  of 
us  about  the  same  size,  he  would  make  offers  to  me 
for  my  part-worn  suits  of  clothes.  Or  he  would  haggle 
for  tailors'  misfits,  with  a  preference  for  trousers  several 
inches  too  long,  preaching  that  when  the  bottoms  were 
frayed  the  extra  length  enabled  you  to  cut  off  an  inch 
and  neatly  cobble.  He  wore  reversible  cuffs  and  dickies, 
and  low  collars  of  which  the  smallness  of  the  area  of 
visibility  decreased  the  need  for  washing.  He  was 
addicted  to  fretwork  and  did  a  profitable  trade  among 
his  intimates  in  watch-stands,  bookcases,  knife-and-fork 
rests ;  and  I  seldom  knew  him  to  cut  into  a  fresh  piece 
of  wood  without  a  definite  commission.  He  stuffed 
birds.  He  attended  lads'  clubs  and  was  anxious  in  a 
dull,  unimaginative  way  that  the  world  around  him 
should  improve  its  mind.  When  I  was  deep  in  Marion 
Lescaut  he  would  recommend  Miss  Yonge's  A  Dove  in 
the  Eagle's  Nest.  One  vice  I  have  never  forgiven  him : 
that  of  whistling  on  all  possible  and  impossible  occa- 
sions; an  aggravating,  insistent,  hour-long  improvisa- 
tion without  sequence,  rhythm,  or  tune. 

"Bird  seed!"  I  overheard  a  half-starved  clerk  mut- 
ter. "Give  'im  bird  seed,  and  'e'll  sing  for  hours  like 
a  blarsted  canary !"  The  fellow  had  a  consumptive  wife 
and  two  unhealthy  children,  and  I  had  not  until  then 
suspected  him  of  being  a  wit.  My  cousin  was  in  great 
demand  at  dances,  and  indeed  such  intelligence  as  he 
had  was  in  his  legs.  At  home  my  uncle  cherished 
his  son  as  the  apple  of  his  eye;  in  business  he  knew 
him  for  a  fool. 


RESPONSIBILITY  101 

Two  incidents  come  into  my  mind.  The  first  at  a 
Christmas  party  when  a  handsome  piece  of  jewellery 
stolen  from  a  cracker  was  found  in  a  pocket  of  my 
overcoat.  Geoffrey,  taxed  with  the  theft,  had  thought 
to  halve  his  guilt  by  implicating  me  as  instigator  and 
receiver. 

"JSTed  said  that  if  I  could  get  it  he  would  take  care 
of  it." 

When  some  years  later  we  were  both  caught  smoking 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  he  had  in  no  way  modified  his 
defence. 

"It  was  Edward  who  wanted  to  smoke,"  he  said, 
"and  he  asked  me  to  as  well.  So  that  we  should  both 
smell  alike." 

I  had  not  lived  many  weeks  at  Oakwood  before  I 
began  to  conceive  an  immense  esteem  for  my  Aunt 
Sarah.  She  was  a  large  woman  of  great  force  of  char- 
acter and  in  no  way  given  to  idolatry  in  the  matter  of 
her  husband.  She  had  the  Yorkshire  woman's  uncom- 
promising directness,  and  stands  out  in  my  recollection 
as  a  model  of  manner.  She  abhorred  all  affectation 
and  could  have  received  a  queen.  She  used  to  say  laugh- 
ingly that  if  ever  the  Queen  came  to  see  her  "when 
Reuben  is  a  knighted  mayor  and  a  cubit  or  so  taller," 
she  hoped  she  should  not  forget  in  her  confusion  as 
subject  her  dignity  as  hostess.  It  was  from  my  aunt 
that  I  learned  all  those  insignificant  courtesies  which 
are  now  so  hopelessly  out  of  date :  not  to  open  the  news- 
paper until  my  uncle  had  seen  it,  not  to  talk  across 
tram-cars,  to  give  the  wall  to  old  ladies,  to  be  polite 
to  beggars,  to  take  off  my  hat  to  the  maids  when  I  met 
them  in  the  street.  It  was  she  who  taught  me  the 
respect  due  to  music  and  to  books.  Music  was  to  be 
bound  and  sewn  and  taped  and  kept  together;  books 


102  RESPONSIBILITY 

were  to  be  covered  in  brown  paper  with  the  titles  neatly 
written  on  the  back.  My  cousins  and  I  were  obliged  to 
make  inventories  of  our  small  libraries  and  account  for 
every  book  at  a  half-yearly  stocktaking.  On  these  occa- 
sions our  clothes  and  boots  were  also  subjected  to  a  re- 
view of  dragonsome  severity,  a  kit  inspection,  if  you 
like.  Aunt  Sarah  would  have  jibbed  at  the  word,  but 
she  insisted  upon  the  thing. 

I  shall  never  forget  going  to  call  with  her  on  a  retired 
dancer  who  had  married  a  rich  tallow-chandler.  This 
lady  had  graciously  let  it  be  known  that  she  might  not 
be  disinclined,  at  a  strictly  moderate  subscription,  to 
open  a  bazaar  at  the  chapel  where  we  worshipped.  After 
the  negotiations  with  which  my  aunt  was  entrusted  had 
been  simperingly  settled,  tea  was  brought  in,  and  with 
tea  the  thinnest  possible  slices  of  bread  and  butter. 
Whereupon  the  ex-charmer  of  multitudes,  whose  newly 
gilt  manners  had  provoked  my  aunt  to  a  state  bordering 
on  exasperation,  began  to  exhibit  signs  of  acute  dis- 
tress. 

"Never,  never,"  she  deplored  from  the  tip  of  her 
tongue,  "can  one  get  adequate  service  from  female  do- 
mestics. The  sluts!"  she  added,  with  full-throated 
vigour  and  a  nearer  approach  to  sincerity  than  we  had 
yet  seen. 

"What  is  the  matter,  my  dear?"  inquired  my  aunt 
soothingly. 

"Where  are  the  bread-and-butter  tongs  ?"  said  the  ex- 
tight-rope-dancer. 

"Bread-and-butter  fiddlesticks!"  exclaimed  my  aunt, 
her  sense  of  sanity  and  proportion  up  in  arms.  "The 
Queen  herself  doesn't  use  'em,  and  you,  my  girl,  will 
never  learn  how!" 

To  my  immense  surprise  the  ex-dancer  burst  into 


RESPONSIBILITY  103 

tears;  whereupon  my  aunt,  genuinely  softened,  went 
over  to  her  and  patted  her  hand. 

"I  am  a  plain  old  woman,"  she  said,  "and  you  are 
a  very  pretty  young  one,  and  I  am  afraid  I  have  ex- 
ceeded even  a  plain  old  woman's  privilege.  Forgive 
me,  my  dear." 

The  tongs  being  then  brought  in,  my  aunt  said  they 
were  a  very  handsome  set  and  quite  a  capital  idea  for 
a  wedding  present,  there  being  small  risk  of  duplica- 
tion; which  little  tactfulness  led  to  a  happy  reconcilia- 
tion, the  ex-dancer  becoming  less  mannered  and  almost 
natural.  She  told  us  about  her  Tobias  and  how  he  had 
worshipped  her  at  a  respectful  distance — the  first  row 
of  stalls,  to  be  exact — for  many  anxious  weeks  before 
he  had  asked  to  be  allowed  to  pay  his  addresses. 

"My  legs  just  danced  their  way  into  his  heart,"  she 
sighed,  dabbing  gingerly  at  her  cheeks  with  the  tiniest 
of  handkerchiefs.  "And  there  they've  remained  ever 
since." 

My  aunt  was  certain  that  they  had. 

Other  callers  arriving,  she  plunged  for  the  tongs  and 
made  a  bold  and  creditable  show  with  them. 

"That  woman  is  a  fool,"  my  aunt  said  when  we  were 
safely  outside,  "but  a  good-hearted  fool." 

She  had  sympathy  with  every  creature  that  breathes, 
with  the  exception  of  trained  nurses. 

"I  don't  believe  in  'em,"  she  urged  vigorously  on  the 
occasion  of  one  of  Geoffrey's  illnesses.  "How  can  the 
woman  turn  the  bov  in  bed  with  those  stiff  cuffs  on,  or 
give  him  his  medicine  with  that  new-fangled  bow  of 
hers  tickling  her  chin.     It's  not  decent." 

I  remember  that  once  she  found  a  nurse — an  ineffi- 
cient ninny,  as  it  happened — letting  a  poultice  get  cold 
while  she  prinked  and  scalloped  it  with  a  fork  to  make 


104  RESPONSIBILITY 

it  look  pretty;  which  led  to  my  aunt  boxing  her  ears 
soundly  and  never  so  much  as  answering  the  ensuing 
protests  and  lawyers'  threats. 

In  his  own  home  my  uncle  had  altogether  bon  carac- 
tere.  Sunday  was  guest-day  at  Oakwood  and  there  was 
generally  a  large  party  for  midday  dinner,  at  which  we 
youngsters  were  not  allowed  to  speak  until  my  aunt  had 
given  the  signal  upon  a  little  silver  bell.  The  ringing 
of  the  bell  was  also  the  sign  for  my  uncle  to  play  the 
fool,  which  he  did  most  agreeably,  cracking  jokes  and 
constructing  towers  of  Babel  with  the  decanters  and 
fruit  dishes.  He  had  a  nice  architectural  sense  and 
catastrophes  were  rare.  But  his  principal  feat  consisted 
in  balancing  a  cup  of  custard  on  his  forehead  and  jug- 
gling simultaneously  with  two  Jaffa  oranges  and  a 
tangerine.  Finally  he  would  propound  some  ancient, 
infantile  riddle  of  which  it  was  traditional  that  Monica 
should  supply  the  answer. 

As  for  that  little  person,  she  has  always  been  perfect 
in  my  eyes. 

§ii 

Late  in  the  evening  of  my  seventeenth  birthday  my 
uncle  called  me  into  his  study. 

"You  are  going  to  start  business  to-morrow,  Ed- 
ward," he  said. 

"Does  that  mean  sweeping  out  the  office?"  I  an- 
swered, cheekily  enough,  my  head  full  of  inculcatory 
nonsense  of  the  Log  Cabin  to  ~\Yh  lie  House  order. 

"No,  my  boy,  it  does  not.  You  are  not  a  fool  and 
I  am  not  a  fool,  and  neither  of  us  believes  that  fortunes 
are  made  by  picking  up  pins  and  bits  of  string.  The 
whole  art  of  business  lies  in  the  knowledge  of  men. 


RESPONSIBILITY  105 

Your  job  in  life  is  to  sell  calico,  but  you  had  better 
realise  once  and  for  all  that  it  is  not  a  knowledge  of 
calico  that  matters  but  knowledge  of  the  people  who 
are  going  to  buy  it.  There  is  an  enormous  amount  of 
cant  talked  about  trade.  No  man  can  sell  something 
his  customer  is  sure  he  doesn't  want ;  the  whole  art  con- 
sists first  in  finding  out  what  your  customer  thinks  he 
wants  and  then  in  persuading  him  that  he  wants  it  bad- 
ly and  from  you.  The  best  salesman  I  ever  met  was  a 
German  Jew  who  knew  nothing  at  all  about  cotton 
goods  but  everything  about  South  Americans.  We 
were  young  apprentices  in  a  London  warehouse.  Strum- 
bach  was  the  fellow's  name.  To-day  he's  the  richest 
merchant  in  Manchester.  He  was  a  better  man  of 
business  than  Shvlock.  He  was  not  content  to  talk 
with  you,  walk  with  you,  and  so  forth;  he  would  eat 
with  you,  drink  with  you  and  pray  with  you,  and  never 
leave  you  from  your  getting  up  to  your  lying  down. 
Whenever  we  had  rich  rastas  from  Rio  or  Buenos  Ayres 
old  Salomon,  our  employer,  would  give  Strumbach  a 
handful  of  sovereigns  and  carte  blanche.  'Where  they 
dine  you  dine;  where  they  sleep,  you  sleep,'  he  would 
say.  'Mind  I  want  no  account,  and  I  don't  care  what 
the  price  of  the  champagne,  but  I  look  to  you  to  bring 
them  to  my  office  and  to  see  that  no  other  house  gets 
so  much  as  a  smell  at  'em.'  With  the  knowledge  that 
Strumbach  had  his  men  under  lock  and  key  old  Salomon 
could  sleep  soundly.  Sometimes  the  young  Jew  would 
ask  for  an  additional  pound  or  two ;  more  often  he  would 
hand  old  Salomon  some  small  change,  which  would  be 
gravely  accepted.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  cheated  the 
old  man." 

"Honour  among  Jews,"  I  said. 

"Exactly.     They  are  the  most  honourable  race  in 


106  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  world.  There  will  be  no  need  for  you  to  pursue 
the  same  tactics  in  the  way  of  treating." 

"I  hope  not,"  I  said  priggishly. 

"For  the  reason  that  we  do  not  deal  with  the  foreign 
customer  direct.  Strumbach  does  that,  and  we  sell 
to  him." 

"But  is  all  business  a  matter  of  treating  ?"  I  asked. 

"All  business,  no,"  replied  my  uncle  gravely,  "only 
the  most  profitable.  You  will  have  enough  to  do  to 
study  your  English  customers.  Some  like  you  to  shake 
hands  with  'em,  others  loathe  it.  Some  enjoy  being 
toadied  to,  others  despise  it.  You  will  have  to  learn 
when  to  offer  a  cigar  and  when  to  accept  one,  to  be 
ready  to  drink  and  tell  stupid  stories,  to  be  slick  and 
smart  or  ponderous  and  reliable.  You  must  be  ready 
to  go  to  the  stake  for  somebody  else's  political  persua- 
sions and  to  be  enthusiastic  about  things  you  care  noth- 
ing at  all  for.  You  will  have  to  take  tickets  for  pre- 
posterous charities,  and  it  is  well  now  and  again  to  ask 
a  man  you  know  to  be  purse-proud  to  subscribe  to  some 
pet  scheme  of  your  own." 

"But  doesn't  all  this  amount  to  prostitution  ?"  I  said 
in  horror.  In  any  lesser  state  of  amazement  I  had 
boggled  at  the  word. 

"You  can  call  it  what  you  like,"  ho  replied.  "Of 
course  it  is  deplorable.  Very,  very  deplorable."  He 
shook  his  head.  "But  you've  got  to  sell  calico,  and  I'm 
telling  you  the  way  to  sell  it" 

"But  don't  they  see  through  you  ?" 

"When  they  are  not  fools,  they  do ;  and  then,  if  you 
are  not  a  fool  you  drop  it." 

"  'To  thine  own  self  be  true  .  .  .'"  I  began. 

"And  you  won't  be  false  to  the  other  fellow,"  con- 
cluded my  uncle  approvingly.     "But,  my  dear  nephew, 


RESPONSIBILITY  107 

isn't  that  assuming  that  your  own  self  will  be  persona 
grata  with  Tom,  Dick  and  Harr j  %  Also  that  they  care 
two  pins  whether  you  are  false  to  them  or  not  ?  I  don't 
quite  know  what  you  are  talking  about  maybe,  but  it 
is  certainly  not  salesmanship.  If  you  think  you  can 
dominate  the  market  all  well  and  good ;  my  advice 
was  for  a  beginner  who  has  to  elbow  his  way  through. 
However,  all  that  is  merely  the  general  consideration; 
to-morrow  we'll  make  a  start.  I'm  going  to  engage  a 
new  manager  to  replace  your  father  at  the  mill.  I  want 
Buckley's  manager — Absalom  Buckley  is  our  chief  rival 
— and  I  want  him  badly.  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  of- 
fer three  hundred ;  he's  worth  five.  I've  put  an  adver- 
tisement in  the  paper  and  taken  care  that  Temple 
knows  who  it  is  that's  advertising:  'Wanted  by  a  well- 
known  firm  of  manufacturers'  and  'Remuneration  ac- 
cording to  results.'  That  fetches  'em.  There'll  be  a 
dozen  applicants  for  the  place  and  Temple  among 
'em." 

"How  do  you  know  Temple  will  be  among  them, 
uncle  ?" 

"Because  I  know  my  man.  Good-night,  my  boy,  and 
pleasant  dreams." 

And  so,  disturbed,  to  bed. 

On  the  way  to  the  office  my  uncle  expounded  to  me 
the  whole  art  of  engaging  servants,  even  highly  paid 
ones. 

"You  advertise,"  he  said,  "not  because  you  can't 
find  what  you  want  but  to  widen  your  choice.  Even 
when  you've  spotted  your  man  it  is  as  well  to  adver- 
tise; it  puts  the  fear  of  competition  into  him.  Then 
you  arrange  for  him  to  come  up  for  interview  at  the 
same  time  as  the  others.  That  puts  the  individual  fear 
into  him.     I  have  known  hundreds  a  year  thrown  away 


108  RESPONSIBILITY 

through  spacing  your  interviews.  Have  'em  all  to- 
gether, keep  'em  waiting,  and  go  through  the  batch  as 
slow  as  you  like.  And  if  there  is  a  man  you  want  keep 
him  till  the  end." 

"Isn't  that  rather  cruel  ?"  I  ventured. 

"All  business  is  cruel.  The  official  receiver  isn't  any 
easier  with  you  because  you've  paid  higher  wages  than 
your  competitors." 

In  the  ante-room  were  gathered  a  dozen  typical  Lan- 
cashire men  of  business.  They  seemed  to  me  hard- 
headed;  they  were  certainly  hard-hatted,  ill-dressed, 
undersized,  common  little  fellows.  They  had  the  cour- 
age of  their  ready-made  bows.  One  or  two  wore  cor- 
duroy trousers.  Both  their  hair  and  their  manners 
seemed  to  have  been  newly  oiled  and  there  hung  about 
them  an  atmosphere  of  common  soap  and  honesty. 

"Good-morning,  gentlemen,"  said  my  uncle.  "Ah, 
Mr  Temple,  how  do  you  do?" 

Temple,  a  tall,  broad-shouldered,  rough  ish-mado  man 
dressed  in  neat  black  replied  without  trace  of  nervous- 
ness that  he  did  well. 

And  then  the  interviews  began.  To  me  it  seemed 
a  humiliating  process.  The  applicants  cringed  and 
fawned  as  though  they  relied  upon  a  success  of  ingratia- 
tion  rather  than  their  qualifications  for  the  post.  My 
uncle  put  them  through  a  regular  cross-examination, 
and  under  the  friendliest  and  most  confidential  guise 
proceeded  to  extract  from  them  the  maximum  amount 
of  information  as  to  his  competitors'  businesses.  "We 
had  dispatched  three  when  an  office  boy  came  in  bear- 
ing a  card  which  my  uncle  read  and  throw  over  to  me. 
It  ran: 

"I  shall  wait  another  five  minutes. — John  Temple." 


RESPONSIBILITY  109 

My  uncle  gave  orders  for  him  to  be  admitted. 

As  soon  as  the  door  was  closed  behind  him  the  big 
man  said:  "I  think  we  can  do  without  t'others,  Mr 
Reuben." 

"Perhaps,"  said  my  uncle,  smiling.  "Well,  Temple, 
I  don't  believe  in  beating  about  the  bush.  How  much 
less  than  three  hundred  ?" 

"I'm  getting  four  where  I  am,"  said  Temple  slowly, 
"what  with  bonuses  and  one  thing  and  another,  and  I 
shanna  tak'  four." 

"No?"  said  my  uncle  affably.  "And  I'm  sure  I 
shan't  offer  it." 

"Now,  Mr  Reuben,"  said  the  other,  "let's  talk  fair. 
You  don't  like  beating  about  t'  bush  and  I  don't  know 
as  it  pleases  me  noather.  I  want  five  pun'  a  week  and 
I'm  baan  t'  hev  it." 

"But  that's  only  two  hundred  and  fifty,"  said  my 
uncle,  "and  I'm  willing  to  stretch  a  bit.  Say  three 
hundred  for  a  good  man." 

"You'll  have  to  stretch  a  lot  more  than  that,  I'm 
thinking!"  said  the  other.  "You  knew  as  well  as 
me  whether  I'm  your  man  or  not.  Five  pun'  a  week 
and  fix  my  own  bonus,  is  my  price." 

"What!"  cried  my  uncle.  "Fix  your  own  bonus! 
What  in  heaven's  name  do  you  mean  ?" 

"What  I  say,  and  no  more  and  no  less.  Fix  my  own 
bonus.  That's  what  I  want  and  what  I'm  going  to  get, 
or  John  Temple  doesn't  take  over.  I  shall  know  how 
much  vou  make,  and  how  much  on  it  is  due  to  me,  and 
how  much  you  can  afford.  I  shallna  cheat  thee.  John 
Temple  has  never  rogued  a  boss  yet  and  he's  not  going 
to  start  now." 

"But  it's  preposterous,"  said  my  uncle.  "How  can 
I  enter  into  a  written  undertaking  to  give  you  an  un- 


110  RESPONSIBILITY 

known  sum  ?  I  do  not  say,"  he  went  on  reflectively, 
"that  certain  fixed  emoluments  and  a  system  of  per- 
centages might  not " 

He  tailed  off  lamentably  under  the  other's  steady  eye. 

"I  never  trust  anything  as  is  written,"  said  Temple 
slowly.  "A  man's  word  with  me,  boss  or  no  boss,  has 
to  be  as  good  as  his  bond." 

My  uncle  nodded  approvingly.  "Certainly,  certain- 
ly.    A  very  proper  view." 

"I  want  no  engagement  and  no  undertakings.  And 
I'll  have  nowt  to  do  with  emoluments  and  systems  as 
you  call  'em.  I  want  plain  wages  and  a  bonus.  My 
wages  weekly  and  my  bonus  reg'lar,  good  years  and  bad. 
Though  I  don't  say  as  I  shan't  want  more  in  good  years 
than  in  t'others." 

"But  the  idea  of  fixing  it  yourself!"  objected  my 
uncle,  pale  at  the  lack  of  precedent  and  the  danger  he 
saw  of  creating  one. 

"Fix  'em  myself.  Yes,"  Temple  nodded  slowly  and 
ruminatively.  "But  I'll  be  fair  and  give  you  an  idea 
in  advance.  I  reckon  that  all  told  I  shall  want  five 
hundred  in  bad  years  and  six  hundred  in  good,  and  I 
reckon  too  as  they'll  all  be  good." 

"It's  too  much,"  said  my  uncle  firmly.  "Now  I'll 
tell  you  what  I'll  do  with  you,  Temple.  Four  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  paid  weekly,  and  fifty  pounds  every 
Christmas  morning  good  years  and  bad.  And  that's 
mv  very  last  word." 

"And  I've  said  mine,  Mr  Reuben.  Ye  can  be  going 
on  with  your  interviews.    I  wish  ye  good  morning." 

He  turned  to  the  door. 

"There's  not  all  that  hurry,"  said  my  uncle,  "I  might 
consider  the  matter  again  and  you  might  like  to  think 
it  over.     As  a  fair  man,  Temple,  you  must  surely  see 


RESPONSIBILITY.  Ill 

my  difficulty.  I  have  no  safeguard  as  to  what  you 
might  not  demand  in  the  case  of  an  abnormally  pros- 
perous year." 

"I  reckon  any  man  ought  to  be  glad  to  pay  for  ab- 
normal prosperity,"  replied  the  other.  "I've  done  my 
considering  and  that's  all  that  matters  to  me.  When 
I  leave  this  room  I  don't  come  back  again.  I  don't 
ask  for  no  en<ra<rements  and  vou  don't  need  no  safe- 

CO  t/ 

guards,  as  you  call  'em.  Xot  the  way  I  see  it,  you 
don't.  If,  come  Christmas,  you  don't  want  me  the  next 
year  you're  under  no  compulsion  to  pay  me  my  bonus. 
I've  got  a  bit  o'  brass  as  I've  saved,  besides  that  what 
mv  fevther  left  me.  I'm  none  married  and  it  all  goes 
into  t'  stocking.  I've  got  between  six  and  seven 
thousand  and  I  shallna  miss  an  odd  hundred.  I'll  lend 
you  some  o'  my  brass  if  you  want,"  he  concluded. 

"I'll  take  five  thousand  at  four  and  a  half,"  said  my 
uncle. 

"Tou  will  not,  Mr  Reuben,"  replied  Temple,  with- 
out rudeness.    "Is  it  to  be  vea  or  nav  about  the  iob  ?" 

"TThv  do  vou  want  to  leave  Buckler's  ?"  mv  uncle 
asked  sharply.  "I  hear  they've  not  been  doing  any 
too  well  lately." 

"TeVe  heard  nowt  o'  t'  sort,"  replied  the  other. 
"Bucklers'  stink  o'  brass,  and  the  onlv  reason  thev  sro 
on  is  to  keep  their  cottages  filled  and  to  find  a  living  for 
their  workfolk.  When  the  old  man  dies  they'll  stop. 
Young  Buckley  never  had  much  brains,  and  what  brains 
he's  s:ot  he's  drinking  awav  fast." 

"Deplorable,"  said  my  uncle. 

"Xow  vou're  different,  Mr  Reuben.    You're  rich,  but 

%!  7  7 

you're  not  as  rich  as  you'd  like  to  be.     You  want  to 

make  a  lot  more  brass,  and  I'm  the  best  chap  to  make 

,it  for  thee-.    You  know  truth  when  you  hear  it.    You're 


112  RESPONSIBILITY 

a  hard  man,  Mr  Reuben,  but  I  never  heard  tell  as  you 
were  a  fool." 

"When  can  you  start  ?"  said  my  uncle. 

"Monday  week,"  replied  Temple. 

"Five  pounds  then,  and  I  suppose  I  must  trust  you 
for  the  rest,"  said  Keuben  as  genially  as  he  could. 

"Them  as  has  trusted  me  haven't  had  much  to  grum- 
ble about,  and  I  hope  as  they  never  will,"  declared 
the  other.  "I'll  run  that  place  as  it  should  be  run." 
Then  turning  to  me  he  added  with  rough  courtesy: 
"Not  any  better  than  your  poor  father  did,  but  happen 
as  honestly.  Good-morning,  Mr  Reuben.  Morning, 
Master  Ned." 

And  he  was  gone. 

But  my  uncle  continued  to  interview  and  to  cross- 
examine,  to  nose  and  to  ferret,  for  the  sheer  love  and 
advantage  of  nosing  and  ferreting. 

When  the  last  applicant  had  been  dismissed  he 
stroked  his  nose  thoughtfully  and  scratched  his  thin 
beard. 

"It's  a  good  rule,"  he  began,  "when  you  find  a  man 
as  clever  as  you  are  to  get  him  on  your  side.  He's 
cheap,  IsTed,  dirt-cheap,  and  some  day  we'll  give  him 
an  interest  in  the  concern..  That  is,"  he  added,  after 
a  pause,  "if  he  forces  us  to." 

§  iii 

But,  I  hear  you  exclaim,  what  is  there  so  very  terrible 
about  Reuben  Ackroyd?  Where  the  proof  of  hideous 
and  viperish  malignity?  Business,  after  all.  was  al- 
ways known  to  be  business. 

I  see  that  I  am  in  for  a  dull  chapter  and  that  I  shall 
not  be  able  to  avoid  a  more  exact  account  of  the  spider's 
web;  that  there  is  need  for  me  to  be  explanatory  and, 


RESPONSIBILITY  113 

God  helping,  entertaining  on  the  subject  of  the  cotton 
trade.  A  pious  hope  as  to  which  I  cherish  few  illu- 
sions. Since  even  the  great  Frenchman  could  fail  to 
make  amusing  the  inner  mysteries  of  poor  Cesar's  Pate 
des  Sultanes  and  Eau  carminative,  and  since  we  are 
little  entranced  with  Chardon's  efforts  to  replace  rag- 
paper  with  a  vegetable  product  (voir  Les  Illusions  Per- 
dues)  what  prospect  have  I,  who  have  no  more  absorbing 
matter  for  intrigue  than  the  threads  in  a  piece  of  calico  ? 
But  I  was  never  a  coward,  and  the  plunge  is  the  thing ! 
Know  then,  reader,  that  cotton  cloth  is  made  from 
cotton.  Admitted  that  when  the  poor  Indian  shivers 
under  his  loin-cloth  and  demands  a  warmer  quality, 
he  is  supplied  with  a  plastery  make-weight  which  wo 
in  England  know  as  China  clay.  But  this,  alas !  is  not 
your  cotton  manufacturer's  only  chinoiserie.  Nature 
has  always  been  the  aider  and  abettor  of  commercial 
acumen.  She  it  is  who  is  your  true  accommodator,  ar- 
ranging that  thread  spun  from  pure  cotton  shall  be  so 
brittle  as  to  need  in  the  honestest  case  wrapping  in  a 
sheath  of  fermented  flour,  in  the  viler  instance  in  a  coat- 
ing of  baked  earth  which,  far  from  having  sailed  the 
China  seas,  has  always  remained  comfortably  at  home 
in  Cornwall.  Know  further,  reader,  that  the  number 
of  threads  criss-crossing  in  your  shirt  so  lovingly  as  to 
be  disentangleable  are  yet  countable.  Not  to  the  naked 
eye,  perhaps,  but  to  the  warehouseman's.  There  is  no 
salesman  living  who  will  not  swear  that  fifteen  threads 
of  Ackroyd  and  Marston's  best  shirting  are  not  fifteen 
but  fifteen  and  a  half.  And  have  you  never  seen  some 
frayed  counter-jumper  measuring  with  a  piece  of  calico 
the  distance  between  thumb  and  nose-end?  A  little 
reflection  tells  us  that  it  is  the  calico  which  he  measures 
and  not  a  fraction  of  space  known  to  the  world  even 


114  RESPONSIBILITY 

in  the  days  when  the  Venus  of  Melos  had  arms;  the 
human  frame  was  expressly  designed  to  establish  the 
measure  of  the  yard.  What  idle  talk  is  this!  you  ex- 
claim ;  a  yard  is  a  yard  all  the  world  over.  Not  in  the 
cotton  trade.  I  am  too  weary  of  it  all,  and  you,  dear 
lady,  now  stifling  an  elegant  yawn  will  not  insist  that 
I  should  precise  how  many  inches  there  may  be  in  a 
cotton  manufacturer's  three  feet.  Sufficient  for  you 
to  know  that  in  this  little  space  may  be  contained  an 
infinity  of  pettifogging  fraud.  What  it  is  important 
for  you  to  realise  is  that  my  uncle  never  descended  to 
obvious  chicane.  He  was  to  be  hated,  not  despised;  a 
rogue  but  no  cheat.  His  fingers  were  round  throats 
rather  than  in  pockets;  whatever  there  was  to  be  said 
of  his  conscience,  in  the  pilfering  sense  his  hands  were 
clean. 

And  here  I  must  explain  that  the  business  of  Ackroyd 
and  Marston  was  divided  into  two  parts.  There  was 
first  the  actual  turning  of  raw  cotton  into  piece  goods, 
which  complicated  operation  took  place  in  the  mill  at 
Crawley  Bridge.  (You  will  find  Crawley  Bridge  on 
any  map.  It  nestles  close  under  the  lee  of  the  Cheshire 
hills  and  has  Ashton-under-Lyne  for  near  neighbour.) 
The  conduct  of  this  business  was  irreproachable,  and 
it  was  under  cover  of  his  Crawley  Bridge  reputation 
for  honesty  that  my  uncle  built  up  the  shadier  half  of 
his  fortune.  The  management  of  the  mill  had  always 
been  in  my  father's  hands;  what  we  called  "the  Man- 
chester end"  in  those  of  my  uncle.  ISTow  the  Manchester 
end  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  agency  for  the 
sale  of  cloth  manufactured  by  the  small  concerns  of 
Stockport,  Oldham,  Blackburn  and  Bury.  At  the  time 
of  which  I  write  there  were  in  these  towns  a  number 
of  small  sheds  run  on  family  lines.    Whilst  the  big  mill 


RESPONSIBILITY  115 

at  Crawley  Bridge  contained  over  two  thousand  loom3, 
the  small  sheds  to  which  I  allude  would  contain  less  than 
a  hundred.  Each  would  he  held  on  a  rent,  together  with 
the  power  by  which  the  looms  were  turned,  by  some  for- 
mer overlooker  who  had  managed  to  put  by  some  small 
savings.  He  would  be  his  own  manager,  foreman  and 
warehouseman,  and  find  his  weavers  among  his  children 
and  near  relatives.  It  was  no  unusual  thing  for  the 
owner's  wife  to  work  loom  to  loom  with  her  mother 
and  with  his.  It  was  the  custom  of  such  small  owners  to 
place  themselves  in  the  hands  of  a  Manchester  agent 
with  a  confidence  approaching  that  of  young  blood  in 
its  sympathetic  money-lender.  He  was  their  stay  and 
prop  in  all  time  of  financial  trouble.  Upon  the  agent! 
Let  us  our  lives,  our  souls,  our  debts,  our  careful  wives, 
our  children  and  our  liabilities  lay  on  the  agent,  was 
the  nightly  prayer  of  the  small  manufacturers.  My 
uncle  exploited  them  royally. 

In  his  many  letters  to  me  Reuben  would  lay  it  down 
that  the  rule  of  agent  demanded  the  extremes  of  tact 
and  diplomacy.  My  own  shorter  view  was  that  it  was 
one  of  monstrous  duplicity.  Mark  that  my  uncle  was  al- 
ways at  pains  to  explain  to  his  small  manufacturer  that 
he  was  acting  solely  as  his  go-between  and  not  as  a 
profiteering  middleman.  "I  am  a  Commission  Agent,"' 
he  would  say,  "and  live  by  my  commission.  I  take 
no  profits.  'Is  not  the  labourer,'  "  etc.  It  was  this 
attitude  which  enabled  him  to  offer  the  manufacturer 
nineteen  shillings  for  a  piece  of  calico  which  he,  my 
uncle,  had  already  sold  for  twenty.  The  rough  fellow 
offering  feeble  protest,  Reuben  would  take  a  turn  round 
the  Exchange  and  come  back  with  a  long  face  and  the 
regret  that  his  customer  would  not  budge.  Did  the 
wretch  insist  that  he  was  being  shorn  a  trifle  too  close 


116  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  that  the  weather  was  really  very  cold,  my  uncle 
might,  if  he  had  lunched  well,  come  back  from  his 
apocryphal  tour  with  an  extra  threepence.  Note  that 
in  either  case  he  made  ninepence  or  a  shilling  above  his 
lawful  commission. 

I  still  possess  a  letter  in  which  he  laid  down  the  laws 
governing  the  whole  duty  and  responsibility  of  the  agent 
in  the  case  in  which  the  agency  is  genuine.  I  think 
that  at  one  time  he  contemplated  a  monograph  on  the 
subject.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  he  never  carried 
the  project  to  completion ;  he  had  the  master-mind.  The 
particular  letter  which  I  am  about  to  quote  was  written 
at  the  seaside,  and  shows  how  the  man  of  genius  may  rise 
superior  to  his  environment.  It  is  admirably  precise 
and  shows  no  trace  of  preparation,  neither  is  there  in  it 
a  single  correction.  I  give  it  as  indicating  the  natural 
simmerings  of  that  active"  brain. 

"A  few  general  considerations,  my  dear  boy,  which 
"may  be  useful  to  you,  and  which  occurred  to  me  this 
"morning  whilst  listening  to  the  band. 

"The  interest  of  an  agent  lies  in  keeping  friends 
"with  the  manufacturer  whom  he  represents  and  the 
"merchant  to  whom  he  sells.  He  may  be  said  to  hold 
"the  balance  between  two  contending  forces;  he  is  the 
"common  ambassador  at  two  rival  courts.  When  mat- 
"ters  go  well  his  role  is  easy ;  when  they  go  ill  he  needs 
"all  the  resourcefulness  of  the  diplomat.  Few  people 
"can  have  friendly  feelings  towards  those  who  say  to 
"them:  'You  are  in  the  wrong/  It  is  not  in  human 
"nature  to  like  that  sort  of  thing,  and  therefore  the 
"agent  must  be  careful  to  maintain  a  strict  neutrality, 
"to  be  content  with  representing  the  manufacturer's 
"views  to  the  merchant  and  the  merchant's  views  to  the 
"manufacturer.     It  is  not  the  agent  who  makes  bad 


RESPONSIBILITY  117 

'cloth ;  it  is  the  manufacturer.  It  i3  not  the  agent  who 
'refuses  to  take  delivery  of  the  bad  cloth;  it  is  the 
'merchant.  The  agent,  protesting  to  the  merchant 
'against  his  action,  transmits  to  the  manufacturer  the 
'merchant's  refusal  to  accept  the  cloth.  The  agent, 
'protesting  to  the  manufacturer  against  the  badness  of 
'his  cloth,  insists  on  the  merchant  fulfilling  his  pur- 
'chase.  And  the  reason  for  this  is  plain.  If  A.,  who 
'holds  one  end  of  the  stick,  succeeds  in  an  action  at 
'law  in  recovering  damages  from  B.,  the  agent,  who 
'stands  in  the  middle,  so,  too,  must  B.  be  able  to  suc- 
'ceed  in  a  simliar  action  against  C,  who  holds  the  stick 
'at  the  other  end.  And  vice  versa.  Note  that  the  second 
'action  must  always  include  the  costs  of  the  first.  !N"ow 
'in  neither  of  these  actions  would  the  verdict  be  gained 
'on  the  bare  contract  alone,  but  also  on  consideration 
'of  the  protests,  complaints,  objections  and  acknowledg- 
'ments  which  had  passed  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
'negotiations  and  transactions.  And  unless  B.'s  rela- 
tions to  C.  in  reference  to  these  protests,  complaints, 
'etc.,  were  the  same  as  A.'s  relations  to  him,  he,  B., 
'might  not  be  able  to  recover  from  C.  what  he  had  lost 
'to  A.    And  vice  versa. 

"Therefore,  my  dear  nephew,  it  is  imperative  that 
'you  should  do  no  more  than  represent  with  absolute 
'clarity  the  views  of  each  end  of  the  stick  to  the  other, 
'keeping  accurate  record  of  all  statements,  proposals, 
'etc.  Otherwise  your  stick-ends  are  likely  to  turn  into 
'upper  and  nether  mill-stones  and  you  one  day  to 
'find  yourself  horribly  bruised. 

"Your  aunt  is  well,  and  I  am  about  to  take  her  for 
'a  walk  along  the  sea-front.  The  breeze  is  westerly 
'and  the  evening  should  be  pleasant." 


118  RESPONSIBILITY 

Plain  as  a  pikestaff,  isn't  it,  and  eloquent  of  all  that 
dodging  and  paltering  which  is  commerce  ?'  .  .  ,  Faugh ! 

Let  me  now  proceed  to  the  reconstruction  of  certain 
commercial  aphorisms  which  my  uncle  was  never  tired 
of  delivering. 

i 

ISTo  man  goes  into  business  "for  the  "benefit  of  hia 
health,"  nor  yet  to  safeguard  the  health  of  others. 

ii 

The  agent  is  the  master  of  ceremonies  at  a  bout  of 
wits.  On  his  right  the  Producer.  On  his  left  the 
Consumer.  Seconds  out  of  the  ring  and  himself  to 
slip  under  the  ropes  at  his  nimblest. 

in 

"The  buyer  hath  need  of  a  thousand  eyes."  It  is 
probable  that  he  will  use  them  all  and  borrow  the  seller's 
single  one  into  the  bargain. 

rv 

It  is  good  tactics  to  give  half-an-ounce  over  measure. 
But  always  exact  the  full  ounce  in  your  turn. 

Most  Machiavellian  of  all,  my  uncle's  flair  for  in- 
herently weak  and  shaky  concerns,  and  his  method  of 
absorbing  and  appropriating  them.  He  would  begin 
by  weaving  round  the  tottering  structure  a  web  of 
blandest  prosperity.  He  would  provide,  whatever  the 
state  of  trade  and  out  of  his  own  pocket,  a  run  of 
profitable  orders  until  such  time  as  he  had  succeeded 
in  getting  himself  appointed  sole  agent — an  easy  thing 
when  the  agent  is  pouring  money  into  the  pockets  of  a 
principal  who  is  also  a  simpleton.      Then  when  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  119 

misguided  fellow  Lad  shorn  himself  of  all  other  con- 
nections and  supports  and  was  under  the  tightest  ob- 
ligation to  seek  none,  he  would  find  his  trade  suddenly 
disappear.  My  uncle  would  be  able  to  find  none  but 
unprofitable  orders,  unprofitable  to  his  principal  that 
is;  would  hold  out  hope  and  encouragement,  and  hop- 
ing and  encouraging  would  bleed  and  bleed  and  bleed. 
Next  the  constitution  of  himself  as  chief  creditor,  and 
then,  like  a  ripe  plum,  the  bright  little,  tight  little  busi- 
ness would  fall  into  his  mouth.  Oh,  he  was  magnani- 
mous,, was  my  uncle,  and  it  was  not  unusual  for  him 
to  employ  his  broken  bankrupt  as  manager  in  what  had 
been  his  own  concern  at  considerably  less  than  he  was 
worth. 

It  may  be  asked  why  the  small  manufacturers  of 
Lancashire  did  not  fight  shy  of  this  voracious  and  all- 
devouring  altruist.     The  following  maxims  apply: 


The  kite  has  no  need  of  an  infinity  of  prey.  The 
essential  thing  is  that  the  Drey  should  not  all  inhabit 
the  same  field. 

VI 

The  world  is  small,  but  Lancashire  is  big. 

I  had  been  learning  the  business  of  a  cotton  manu- 
facturer at  small  places  under  my  uncle's  thumb — 
weaver  at  one,  "slasher"  at  another,  overlooker  at  a 
third,  in  the  office  at  a  fourth — for  some  considerable 
time  before  I  realised  that  all  Reuben's  kindly  ques- 
tionings as  to  the  prosperity  of  the  friendly  folk  who 
sheltered  me  were  so  many  evilly  disposed  soundings, 
that  he  was  using  me  as  the  most  ingenuous  of  spies. 


120  RESPONSIBILITY 

I  agree  with  you,  madam.     A  dull  chapter. 


IV 


But  I  am  getting  on  too  fast.  I  was  not  put  to  my 
apprenticeship  in  the  little  towns  of  Lancashire  until 
I  had  made  myself  master  of  the  haggling  and  huxter- 
ing  which  constitute  the  essence  of  trade.  My  notion 
of  the  man  of  business  was,  and  is  still,  that  of  the 
tapster  turned  bagman.  I  did  my  best,  I  have  always 
done  my  best,  to  preserve  the  same  attitude  towards 
those  who  would  sell  to  me  as  towards  those  to  whom 
I  seek  to  sell.  But  the  thing's  impossible;  or  at  least 
it  is  certainly  not  normal.  The  buyer  blusters  and 
bullies,  the  seller  fawns  and  cringes.  There  are  riotous 
exceptions  and  inversions,  of  course.  I  have  known 
buyers  apt  to  abasement,  and  sellers  who  could  lash 
themselves  to  fury;  I  have  witnessed  humiliating 
encounters  between  two  of  the  cringing  fraternity, 
mutually  fair  speaking,  Greek  meeting  Greek,  and  both 
giving  shameful  ground;  and  I  have  been  an  amused 
spectator  at  battles  royal,  German  running  full  tilt 
against  a  kindred  stomach.  I  have  no  views  upon  alien 
and  peaceful  invasion  and  merely  record  the  fact  that 
three-quarters  of  the  Manchester  shipping  trade  is  done 
in  broken  English.  My  uncle  was  never  tired  of  a 
yarn  concerning  Strumbach's  one  defeat.  Invaded  in 
his  sanctum  by  a  salesman  upright  on  his  forks. — con- 
sciousness in  Whose  image  he  is  made  gives  even  the 
poorest  of  these  creatures  a  certain  temerity — the 
great  Jew,  with  many  guttural  garnishings,  demanded 
to  know  whom  the  wretch  represented.  To  which  the 
timorous  fellow,  mastering  his  terror  as  best  he  might 
and  tendering  his  employers'  card,  stutteringly  replied: 
"These  b-b-bastards !"     To   Strumbach's   credit  let  it 


RESPONSIBILITY  121 

•be  recorded  that  the  ripost  marked  the  beginning  of 
a  lifelong  "connection." 

Perseverance  was  one  of  my  uncle's  pet  themes. 
On  summer  evenings  after  dinner  he  would  be  inspired 
by  the  fragrance  of  the  garden  and  the  beauty  of 
descending  night  to  some  such  phrase  as: 

"Success,  my  boy,  depends  less  upon  ability  than 
upon  persistence  and  steady  plodding." 

"Patience  is  a  weary  mare,"  I  would  reply. 

"Well  put,  nephew;  well  put.  Many  a  brilliant 
advocate  owes  his  first  success  to  being  found  in  his 
chamber  killing  flies  with  a  ruler  when  better  men 
than  he  have  gone  to  the  Grand  National.  The  office 
stool's  the  thing." 

From  which  I  deduce: 

VII 

Success  to  be  a  matter  of  glue  rather  than  gumption, 
of  buttocks  rather  than  brains. 

But,  contrariwise: 

VIII 

Orders  not  to  be  valued  by  the  amount  of  shoe- 
leather  expended  to  obtain  them. 

Some  day  I  shall  write  a  treatise  on  the  exaggerated 
idea  of  the  nobility  of  trade.  I  find  little  force  in  the 
objection  that  the  world  would  get  on  ill  without  it. 
Equally  the  world  would  get  on  ill  without  scavengers 
and  drains,  yet  few  look  for  beauty  in  a  sewer.  To 
deal  is  not  noble  in  itself.  To  fabricate  where  the 
beauty  of  material  is  considered  and  utilised  is  an 
honourable  calling;  to  trade  in  the  produce  of  another 


122  RESPONSIBILITY 

man's  brains,  whether  that  produce  be  sonatas  or  cali- 
coes, is  a  dishonorable  calling.  At  its  highest  trade  can 
never  be  more  than  the  science  of  distribution.  To 
look  down  upon  the  shopkeeper  as  shopkeeper  betrays 
the  snob;  to  despise  him  for  his  bated  breath  and 
whispering  humbleness  is  the  mark  of  the  true  aristo- 
crat.   Hear,  therefore,  two  aphorisms  of  my  own : 

TK 

The  aristocrat  is  nearly   always  useless  and   often 
dangerous.    But  at  least  he  has  a  feeling  for  dignity. 


The  aristocrat  meets  the  whole  world  on  his  own 
plane.  Since  death  and  the  horse  are  your  only  level- 
lers, it  follows  that  the  only  trades  proper  to  the 
nobilitv  are  the  undertakers  and  the  horse-dealer's. 

There  was  an  understanding  at  Oakwood  that  if 
business  only  was  talkable  at  the  dinner-table,  the  proper 
matter  for  the  drawing-room  was  the  novels  of  eminent 
Noncomformists.  In  our  immediate  circle  English 
literature  was  confined  to  the  genius  of  a  lady  to  whose 
least  outpouring  the  high-minded  National  Conscience 
found  itself  unable  to  do  justice  under  two  closely 
written  columns.  You  can  imagine  the  disturbance 
created  in  the  social  atmosphere  when  some  adventur- 
ous hen,  fluttering  from  tea-table  to  tea-table,  first 
brought  news  of  a  London  writer's  realistic  and  non- 
romantical  treatment  of  the  seduction  of  a  servant  girl. 
Now,  I  have  listened  to  as  much  distressful  cackle  as 
any  other  youngster  brought  up  in  the  provinces,  but 
I  search  my  memory  in  vain  for  any  parallel  to  the 
avalanche  of  inept  and  futile  criticism  occasioned  by 


RESPONSIBILITY  128 

this  honest  "book.  The  mothers  of  our  race,  hearing  the 
new  generation  in  their  womh,  would  ask  each  other  not 
whether  the  book  was  true  or  beautiful,  nor  yet  what 
might  conceivably  be  clone  to  remedy  the  state  of  affairs 
exposed.  They  said  flatly  that  if  such  things  were,  they, 
"for  one,"  did  not  want  to  hear  about  them ;  and  that  if 
they  could  help  it,  neither  should  anyone  else  hear 
about  them. 

"I'm  surprised  at  the  libraries," — it  is  my  old  friend 
the  Gadgett  speaking,  the  while  she  strains  at  her 
cerements  and  nods  a  woeful  plume.  "They  should 
know  better  than  to  allow  such  books  to  cross  their 
counters.  Nowadays  I  have  to  forbid  my  girls  to  look 
at  so  much  as  a  fly-leaf  until  I  have  perused  the  book 
myself.  If  it  isn't  servant  girls  it's  farming  maids 
I'm  sure  it's  a  miracle  our  daughters  remain  pure. 
It  is  enough  to  make  one  ask  what  the  world  is  coming 
to." 

"Its  senses  perhaps  ?"  I  ventured. 

Horatia  bridled. 

"Or  would  you  suggest  some  form  of  index  ?"  I  went 
on,  having  made  some  study  of  the  subject  for  a  de- 
bate at  a  Mutual  Improvement  Society  of  which  my 
Cousin  Geoffrey  was  an  ardent  and  whistling  sup- 
porter. I  said  no  more  and  lay  in  wait  for  the  good 
soul. 

"The  Index  Expurgatorius,"  began  the  catafalque, 
"has,  I  hear,  done  good  work  in  France.  I  look  upon 
it  as  atoning  for  their  most  unfortunate  Revolution." 

"It  was  a  Spanish  idea,  surely — not  French?"  I 
risked. 

"And  as  a  compensation  vouchsafed  to  the  inhabit- 
ants of  that  misguided  country,"  she  went  on  undis- 
turbed. 


124  RESPONSIBILITY 

"I  should  say  that  it  is  not  the  country  that  mat- 
ters, but  the  principle,"  squeaked  a  Miss  Lirnpkin, 
an  indefatigable  though  ineffectual  trimmer  of  her 
lamp. 

"Very  well,  ladies,"  I  began  in  my  best  debating 
manner,  "I  will  take  you  in  any  country  you  like. 
Do  you  know  that  the  Index  generalis  scriptorum  inter- 
dictorum,  first  published  in  the  sixteenth  century  and 
continued  almost  to  the  present  day,  proscribed  the 
whole  of  Balzac,  the  most  famous  work  of  Victor  Hugo, 
both  the  Dumas,  and  even  that  poor  old  thing  Georges 
Sand."    At  twenty  one  can  be  very  severe. 

"Novelists !"  said  Horatia,  with  infinite  scorn. 

"And  Montaigne  and  Pascal  and  the  Fables  of  La 
Fontaine,"  I  went  on.  "Do  you  know  that  the  diet  of 
London  proscribed  Wycliffe  and  even  Paradise  Lost?" 

"It  was  certainly  a  foolish  thing  to  do,"  said  Miss 
Lirnpkin.  "The  author  might  have  been  annoyed  and 
then  we  should  never  have  known  how  paradise  was  to 
be  regained." 

"Perhaps  you  are  not  aware,  ma'am,"  I  continued, 
"that  the  cardinal  in  charge  of  the  Index  made  a 
good  thing  out  of  releasing  books  at  so  much  a  time  ?" 

"Nothing  that  a  Papist  could  do  would  surprise  me," 
said  the  Gadgett. 

"Or  that  until  recently  Copernicus  and  Galileo  were 
considered  mischievous  ?  Or  that  in  Catholic  countries 
to  this  day  the  Bible  itself  is  prohibited." 

"I  really  think,"  interrupted  my  aunt  who  disliked 
any  "dragging-in"  of  the  Bible,  "that  we  should  al- 
low each  country  to  decide  what  is  best  for  itself.  We 
must  be  broad-minded." 

"We  must,  indeed,"  sighed  the  Lirnpkin. 

"If  ever  I  thought  that  one  of  my  girls  was  to  grow 


RESPONSIBILITY  125 

up  a  Liz  of  the  Liza-Lu's,  or  whatever  you  call  them, 
I  would  rather  see  her  dead  in  her  coffin."  And  the 
widow  of  the  Rector  of  St  Euphorbius's  looked  as 
though  she  meant  it. 

"Surely,"  said  Monica,  who  was  beginning  to  grow 
up,  "Mary  or  Dorothy  might  be  allowed  to  judge  of 
that  herself.  Grave-clothes  are  so  unbecoming.  I  sim- 
ply can't  see  Dorothy  in  a  shroud." 

"Monica,"  said  my  aunt  with  apparent  severity, 
"there  are  subjects  for  levity  and  subjects  in  which 
Mrs  Gadgett  is  good  enough  to  take  a  great  interest. 
I  desire  that  you  should  not  confuse  the  two." 

"Very  well,  mamma,"  replied  Monica,  with  a  highly 
impertinent  simulation  of  meekness.  She  understood 
her  mother  admirably. 

"Don't  say  'Very  well,  mamma,'  to  me,"  retorted 
my  aunt.  "Go  to  the  piano  and  play  Mrs  Gadgett  and 
Miss  Limpkin  your  Gipsy  Rondo." 

"Certainly,  mamma,"  said  Monica,  and  dashed  off 
into  the  "Diddle  diddle,  diddle  diddle,  diddle  dum,  dum 
dee !"  of  that  detestable  piece. 

My  first  intimations  of  sex,  then,  came  to  me  as 
an  ugly,  leering  mystery.  Often  I  would  walk  about 
the  streets  at  night  fascinated  by  those  shawled,  silent 
shadows  creeping  along  the  walls  of  our  great  ware- 
houses. Once  I  found  a  poor  drab  weeping  in  her  apron, 
and  I  spoke  to  her.  She  told  me  that  her  little  brother 
had  died  that  afternoon  and  that  she  was  relying  upon 
the  next  two  evenings  to  bury  him.  I  gave  the  girl 
what  few  shillings  I  had  and  walked  away,  asking 
myself  how  much  the  Gadgetts  and  the  Limpkins  and 
probably  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  and  the  local  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament  knew  about  life.     I  doubted  whether 


126  RESPONSIBILITY 

my  aunt's  remedy  in  like  case  would  have  gone  beyond 
a  "sound"  talking-to. 

I  found  a  similar  absence  of  understanding  of  the 
realities  in  the  ministrations  at  the  little  chapel  which 
my  uncle  ran  as  systematically  as  he  did  his  business. 
As  the  wealthiest  member  of  the  congregation  he  was 
often  chairman  of  the  committee,  and  when  not  chair- 
man the  power  behind  the  chair.  It  was  suggested 
by  Minchin  the  bootmaker  that  I  should  act  as  secre- 
tary, "to  give  the  young  gentleman  a  wider  outlook  in 
affairs."  "Affairs"  was  indeed  the  right  word,  our  very 
creed  wearing  the  air  of  a  prospectus.  "One  God,  no 
devil,  and  twenty  shillings  in  the  pound,"  it  ran.  The 
building  contained  an  altar,  but  it  was  an  altar  "with- 
out trappings,"  and  the  minister  wore  a  tightly  but- 
toned frock-coat  with  a  waiter's  white  bow.  There  was 
no  authorised  form  of  service  and  I  had  to  sit — we  did 
not  kneel — through  improvisations  which  had  no  distin- 
guishable beginning  or  middle  and  which  drew  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  to  an  end.  I  learnt  to  measure  time 
by  the  length  of  diffuse  sermons  indifferently  phrased 
and  of  meagre  momentum,  in  which  thanks  would  be 
returned  for  philosophers  the  preacher  had  never  read 
and  for  poets  who  could  only  have  mystified  him.  Ex- 
hortation abounded  to  avoid  things  which  were  not 
within  the  experience  of  the  preacher,  and  it  was  rare 
that  a  sermon  drew  to  a  close  without  a  reference  to 
the  advisability  of  marching  breast-forward  never 
doubting  clouds  would  break.     The  literary  touch. 

The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  chapel  was  chill  and 
unbeautiful.  There  was  no  colour  in  the  windows  save 
the  stains  of  fog  and  dirt;  the  choir  was  composed  of 
giggling  young  ladies  from  the  millinery  stores;  the 
Sunday  school  superintendent,  hungry  after  an  early 


RESPONSIBILITY  127 

breakfast,  would  devour  bam  sandwiches  during  the 
lessons  and  eject  offending  gristle  into  the  aisle.  The 
chapel  was  situated  in  a  district  of  mean  and  dingy- 
squalor,  and  I  do  not  recollect  that  we  ever  attracted 
a  stranger  or  that  we  had  more  influence  on  the  neigh- 
bourhood than  a  pillar-box.  It  is  true  that  we  instituted 
a  society  for  the  reclaiming  of  the  irreclaimable,  but  the 
only  fish  that  came  into  our  net  were  half-a-dozen 
guileless  souls  whose  only  failings  were  consumption 
and  underfeeding.  We  prayed  for  the  blackguard  with- 
out ever  getting  into  touch  with  him,  and  even  had  we 
done  so  I  firmly  believe  that  we  should  have  taken 
him  by  the  shoulders  and  put  him  outside. 

Monica  was  active  but  sceptical.  "I  don't  quite 
see,"  she  would  say,  with  a  touch  of  her  father's  intona- 
tion, "that  we  are  doing  Any  Good.  I  come  home  from 
meetings  very  tired,  but  the  only  benefit  to  anybody 
seems  to  be  that  I  sleep  well  afterwards.  Dealing  with 
the  poorer  classes  isn't  easy.  You  know  the  Higgins 
woman  and  how  dirty  her  babies  always  are.  The  only 
way  I  could  get  to  their  heads  to  wash  them  to-day 
was  by  giving  Mrs  Higgins  half-a-crown  and  sending 
her  to  the  public-house.  And  there  she'll  stop  all  day. 
I  don't  for  a  minute  suppose  she'll  come  home  sober. 
And  so  to-night  her  husband  will  thrash  her,  and  then 
the  poor  babies  will  catch  it.  By  the  way,  Ned,  I 
want  an  old  pair  of  trousers.  Higgins  has  drunk 
his." 

That  was  Monica  all  over.  She  would  have  left  me 
without  a  shirt. 

The  chapel  was  never  in  touch  with  the  life  that 
surrounded  it ;  we  might  just  as  well  have  met  together 
in  the  middle  of  the  Sahara.  When  the  minister  "re- 
ceived a  call  elsewhere"  the  committee  would  invite 


128  RESPONSIBILITY 

tenders  and  offer  a  guinea  and  third-class  return  fare 
for  a  couple  of  trial  sermons.  And  by  these  sermons, 
together  with  the  impression  produced  on  the  influen- 
tial members  of  the  flock  at  whose  houses  the  candidate 
had  dined  and  supped,  was  the  choice  of  shepherd 
decided.  I  look  back  upon  my  share  in  these  negotia- 
tions with  infinite  disgust.  To  think  that  I  have  been 
instrumental  in  beating  down  some  poor  devil  from  a 
hundred  and  twenty  a  year  to  a  hundred  and  ten !  To 
think  that  some  half-starved  fisher  of  men  should  have 
been  constrained  to  bait  his  hook  for  me  with  def- 
erence and  servility ! 

Three  Sundays  in  the  year  were  accorded  to  the 
minister  in  which  to  make  holiday.  I  have  never 
doubted  that  he  took  advantage  of  them  to  earn  three 
extra  guineas  as  "relief."  In  the  absence  of  the  parson 
the  services  were  conducted  by — my  uncle!  What 
charivari  then  of  commercial  astuteness  and  artless 
blasphemy!     I  cull: 

XI 

Since  we  are  without  information  as  to  the  Good 
Samaritan's  means  we  cannot  judge  of  his  degree  of 
generosity. 

Since  we  are  not  told  whether  the  widow's  rent 
was  paid  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  mite  was  hers 
to  give. 

No  man  has  the  right  to  be  generous  at  the  expense 
of  his  creditors.  Even  the  disciple  must  cut  his  coat 
according  to  his  cloth. 

XII 

"And  they  straightway  left  their  nets,  and  followed 
him." 


RESPONSIBILITY  129 

The  morality  of  this  proceeding  depends  upon  the 
fishermen  having  no  business  engagements. 

§v 

After  a  short  apprenticeship  to  the  trade  of  sub- 
servience I  was  allowed  to  make  my  bow  to  Strumbach. 
This  huge  German  would  have  been  a  leading  figure 
in  any  English  city.  He  wa3  at  the  centre  of  our 
many  activities;  he  presided  over  the  Goethe  Society, 
and  largely  guaranteed  that  series  of  classical  concerts 
which  has  helped  to  make  the  Englishman's  reputation 
for  musical  taste;  there  was  no  charity  he  did  not 
handsomely  support,  and  no  public  subscription  list 
that  he  did  not  head.  But  many  were  the  stories  told 
of  highly  placed  employees  dismissed  at  a  moment's 
notice.  It  was  said  that  during  a  dinner-party  at  the 
house  of  his  confidential  secretary  to  whom  he  paid 
the  princely  salary  of  two  thousand  a  year  he  had  waved 
a  fat,  amiable  hand,  and  exclaimed:  "I  am  Otto 
Strumbach  und  I  haf  no  bartner.  Vy  should  ze  firm 
not  begom  Strumbach  and  Gompany  ?"  And  the  secre- 
tary had  beamed.  That  night  Otto  slept  ill,  his  astute- 
ness always  most  awake  in  the  small  hours.  The  fol- 
lowing morning  he  sent  for  his  second. 

"I  haf  been  zinking,  Mr  Scholtz,"  he  said,  "zat  nod 
even  mit  ze  two  zousand  a  year  of  salary  vat  I  gif  you, 
haf  you  been  able  to  buy  all  zose  vonderful  pictures 
zat  you  haf  in  your  house,  und  to  zend  zose  so  fine 
boys  of  yours  to  Oxford.  I  myself  haf  my  son  Rupert 
zere,  und  vat  he  costs,  alone  his  father  knows.  Ve 
vill  not  make  a  bartnership  if  you  blease;  but  ve  will 
dissolve  mit  one  anozzer.  At  ze  end  of  ze  year  for  ze 
salary ;  bot  you  leaf  mine  house  zis  very  day." 

Other  stories  there  were  of  six,  nine  months',  a  year's 


130  RESPONSIBILITY 

holiday  accorded  to  ailing  clerks,  with  seaside  expenses 
paid  and  an  allowance  for  wife  and  family.  Like  all 
great  men,  Otto  was  single-minded  and  ruthless  in  his 
single-mindedness.  His  purpose  achieved  he  could 
afford  to  be  human.  He  paid  enormous  salaries  but 
insisted  upon  complete  devotion.  "Zay  shall  haf  no 
ozzer  gods  but  Otto,"  he  proclaimed  openly.  He  kept 
an  inventory  of  his  employees'  families  with  tables  of 
their  salaries  and  probable  expenses.  Of  a  dashing 
young  clerk  disporting  himself  in  kid  gloves  of  a 
cabriolet  yellow  he  asked  simply : 

"Vy?" 

"To  keep  my  hands  warm,  sir,"  answered  the  ex- 
quisite. 

"Voollen  vuns,  my  boy,  voollen  vuns !"  the  old  man 
purred. 

He  had  an  elaborate  system  of  espionage  and  knew 
the  haunts  and  habits  of  his  men.  An  occasional  orgy 
or  debauch  he  would  forgive,  but  not  a  steady  addiction 
to  music,  the  theatre,  or  any  art  soever.  An  outbreak 
of  viciousness  was  pardonable,  a  persistent  hobby  put 
you  beyond  the  commercial  pale. 

"Youth  most  haf  his  fling,"  he  would  say,  "und  he 
vorks  all  ze  better  afterwards.  But  my  clerks  must  haf 
no  interest  vich  gompetes  mit  me." 

Otto's  normal  expression  was  one  of  childlike  sim- 
plicity, and  there  was  something  burly  about  the  whole 
man  which  reminded  you  of  a  good-tempered  bear. 
He  was  always  perfectly  tailored,  and  in  matters  out- 
side his  business  you  could  call  him  a  gentleman.  As 
we  walked  across  to  Otto's  office  my  uncle  spoke  with 
pride  of  having  been  kicked  down  his  stairs  for  three 
consecutive  years  of  three  hundred  morning  visits  each 
before  getting  his  first  order.     This  excessive  mistrust 


RESPONSIBILITY  131 

was  largely  due,  my  uncle  considered,  to  their  having 
been  clerks  together  in  London.  Otto  was  thought 
to  be  getting  on  towards  his  second  million. 

"Does  he  never  intend  to  spend  any  of  it  ?"  I  asked. 
"He  must  be  getting  old." 

"He  adds  to  it,"  said  Reuben,  "and  he  likes  adding." 

I  enlarged  on  what  was,  at  that  time,  a  pet  theory 
of  mine;  a  theory  to  the  effect  that  a  man  is  morally 
entitled  to  do  only  so  much  money-grubbing  as  will 
afford  him  a  competence. 

"And  then  ?"  queried  Reuben. 

"Give  the  world  back  something  of  what  it  has  given 
him,"  I  spouted. 

"Meaning  what,  exactly  ?" 

"Beautiful  books,  beautiful  pictures." 

"But  suppose  a  man  has  no  capacity  for  repaying 
the  world  in  those  high-flown  ways?  Mind,  I  do  not 
agree  as  to  the  necessity  for  repayment." 

"Give  to  the  poor,"  I  answered,  and  I  confess  that 
the  remark  did  not  sound  as  convincing  as  I  should 
have  liked.  I  continued  to  enlarge  on  the  theme.  I 
laid  down  the  principle  that  money  should  be  the  spur 
and  not  the  collar  and  the  trace. 

"There's  ambition  as  well  as  money,  you  know," 
said  Reuben. 

"Who  wants  to  sell  more  calico  than  ever  he  has 
sold  before?"  I  asked  superbly. 

"Otto  does,"  replied  my  uncle. 

"He's  an  artist  then?" 

Reuben  shrugged  his  shoulders.  At  the  door  of 
the  magnificent,  palatial-looking  warehouse,  for  there 
was  nothing  mean  about  the  German,  he  stopped  a 
moment. 

"Otto  will  be  sure  to  buy  something  from  you  to  give 


132  RESPONSIBILITY 

you  a  start,"  lie  said.  "I  know  he  is  open  for  anot.li or 
lino  of  our  Crawley  Shirting.  The  price  is  twenty 
shillings,  delivery  as  he  likes,  but  I  shall  leave  the 
bargaining  to  you;  get  more  if  you  can.  But  whatr 
ever  price  yon  agree  upon,  he  will  want  it  dividing. 
That  is  to  say,  if  you  fix  the  price  at  tw<  hillings 

he  will  want  half  the  order  hooking  at  nineteen  and 
half  at  twenty-one." 

"Why?"  tasked, 

"So  that  he  can  show  our  competitors  the  cheaper 
of  the  two  contracts.  'Aokroyd's  price  is  nineteen  shill- 
,'  he  will  then  toll  them.  We  establish  the  price 
and  that  forces  the  others  to  sell  at  it." 

"But  suppose  he  did  the  same  thing  with  other 
manuf;  rs,  and  .showed  you  their  contracts?     You 

wouldn't  believe  him." 

"He  doesn't  do  it  with  anybody  else.  We  lead,  you 
know." 

"But  that's  dishonest,"  I  urged. 

"We're  here  anyhow,"  said  Keuben.  "We  can  talk 
about  that  another  time." 

We  passed  the  inky  watch-dogs  and  the  scribbling 
sentinels  without  difficulty.  Arrived  at  the  private 
office  Reuben  tapped  familiarly  at  the  door,  opened  it 
a  few  inches,  and  with  a  curious  sidling  motion  inserted 
head  and  one  shoulder. 

"Come  in,"  roared  a  voice. 

We  went  in. 

I  have  Been  conscientious  actors  under  the  influence 
of  a  fine-felt  frenzy,  and  great  ones  in  the  throes  of  a 
well-simulated  one.  I  have  seen  Irving  as  Shylock 
and  Salvini  as  Othello.  I  have  been  with  Balzac  in  the 
cabinet  of  the  banker  JSTucingen.  But  never  have  I 
seen   energy   and   passion    raised    to   Otto's   dfemonio 


RESPONSIBILITY  133 

power.  He  had  the  fervour  of  the  disciple,  the  ob- 
stinacy of  the  fanatic,  the  ecstasy  of  the  martyr.  His 
whole  soul  was  on  fire.  lie  was  selling.  Caught  in  the 
terrible  Jewish  toils  the  customer  by  his  side  quaked 
and  quivered,  submitting  with  as  good  grace  as  he  might 
to  the  pawing  of  his  cheeks  and  the  pulling  of  his 
beard  by  the  big  man's  well-cared-for,  fleshy  hand. 

"Come  in,"  roared  Otto.  "There  are  no  secrets  in 
mine  house/'  and  he  turned  again  to  the  client. 

"That  is  because  this  particular  customer  doesn't 
buy  our  goods,"  whispered  my  uncle,  with  a  jerk  of  the 
thumb  towards  Otto's  victim. 

"Sevenpence  a  yard,"  shouted  Otto,  "und  I  haf  no 

more  time   mit  you   zis   day.      Zese   gentlemen " 

And  he  turned  to  us. 

But  the  customer  had  still  a  kick  left  in  him.  He 
pulled  Otto  by  the  coat-sleeve.  He  whined  that  seven- 
pence  was  a  price  which  in  theory  he  was  prepared 
to  pay,  but  that  he  wanted  better  value  for  the  money. 

"Bring  me  ze  next  quality,  blease,  Mr  Ransom, 
ze-vwYirzat-is-hetter-zafirzis.  Zo,"  he  said  slowly  and 
with  intention  to  a  youth  standing  at  his  side  and  who 
appeared  to  bo  in  the  grip  of  some  unholy  fascination. 
The  young  man  retreated  to  the  door,  his  eyes  fixed 
on  Otto's  as  though  in  hypnotic  trance. 

"To-morrow,"  said  Otto,  again  turning  to  his  cus- 
tomer, "I  zend  flowers  for  your  lady.  To-night  ve 
dine  togezzer,  you  und  madame  und  your  loffly  little 
girl.  Vat  matters  vezzer  you  gif  sevenpence  or  six- 
pence or  vun  shilling.     Ve  dine  all  ze  same.     So!" 

And  he  rubbed  his  hands. 

Mr  Ransom  reappeared.  I  had  an  impression  that 
he  came  through  the  floor ;  he  certainly  looked  much 
too  scared  to  have  propelled  himself  all  the  way  from 


134  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  door  in  the  normal  manner.  He  sagged  at  the 
knees. 

"We  have  no  better  quality,  sir,"  he  said. 

Otto  turned  to  his  customer  and  said  quietly:  "Zen 
I  take  your  sixpence  dree-farthings.  Bot  I  gif  you 
von  dish  und  von  bottle  less  mit  your  dinner  to-night." 
The  bargain  was  clinched  and  the  customer  departed. 

And  now  a  complete  change  came  over  Strumbach 
as  he  turned  to  the  tremblirg  youth  at  his  side.  Devils 
leaped  from  his  beady  eyes  and  snakes  in  the  form  of 
words  came  hissing  from  his  mouth  and  fell  writhing 
on  the  floor  at  our  feet.  An  old  fakir's  trick,  but  then 
Otto  was  a  fakir  with  something  to  sell. 

"Ton  fool,"  he  shouted,  "you  damned  English  fool. 
Ven  I  tell  you  slowly,  like  zat" — he  spaced  his  words* — 
"to  bring  me  a  better  quality,  zen  vat  you  haf  to  do  is 
to  bring  anozzer  piece  of  ze  same  quality  and  zay  it 
is  better.  Gott  in  Himmel,  but  vill  zay  never  learn 
business,  zese  English  swine?  I  am  not  angry,  my 
boy;  I  am  not  blaming  you.  I  am  just  saying  you 
are  a  damned  fool.    Vat  your  salary,  eh  ?" 

"Three  hundred,  sir,"  stammered  the  poor  fellow. 

"Zen  I  make  it  dree-fifty.  At  dree  hundred  I  must 
egspect  a  fool.    Now  out  mit  you." 

Poor  Ransom,  in  whom  I  felt  a  kindred  spirit,  gave 
me  a  glance  and  I  tried  to  tell  him  with  my  eyes  that 
if  he  had  his  Otto,  I  had  my  Reuben.  There  was  this 
difference,  however,  that  Reuben  would  have  reduced 
the  salary  by  fifty  pounds  a  year,  and  counted  it  a 
good  morning's  work. 

"So  zis  is  ze  young  man,"  Strumbach  said  pleasantly 
enough  and  holding  out  his  hand.  "Veil,  my  boy, 
I  make  you  velcome.  How  many  years  did  I  kick 
you  down  zose  stairs  ?"    He  looked  at  my  uncle. 


RESPONSIBILITY  135 

"Three,"  said  Reuben,  without  shrinking. 

"Zat  makes  friendship,"  said  the  other.  "Two  is 
noddings;  dree  is  kolossal.  Und  yet  ve  had  worked 
togezzer  as  boys.  Vonderful !  Veil,  Mr  Edward,  your 
uncle  vill  tell  you  zat  I  am  now  his  best  friend.  Ven 
he  vants  to  sell  I  buy,  and  ven  I  want  to  buy  he  must 
sell.  You  follow  his  example  und  you  begom  rich. 
Yen  your  uncle  sell  to  me  cheaper  I  buy  more  still, 
und  he  begomes  richer  zan  he  is.  Bot  he  does  very 
veil  already.    So !" 

"Edward  will  sell  you  anything  you  want,"  said 
Reuben. 

"At  nineteen  shillings  I  buy,"  said  Otto. 

"And  at  twenty  shillings  and  sixpence  I  sell,"  I 
replied,  with  a  courage  which  amazed  me. 

"Vat  your  uncle  tell  you  he  sell  at?"  asked  Otto 
quickly. 

I  hesitated. 

"He  tell  you  his  price  twenty  shillings;  get  more 
if  you  can.    Old  fox,  I  know  him." 

"My  uncle  has  left  the  price  to  me,"  I  said,  with 
an  assumption  of  dignity.  "My  price  is  twenty  shillings 
and  sixpence." 

"Zen  I  take  ten  zousand,"  said  Otto.  "Bot  remem- 
ber zis.  Venever  you  want  to  sell,  you  gome  to  me. 
You  do  not  go  to  Klein  or  Hoffman  or  Strumpf :  you 
gome  to  me.    Bromise !" 

And  of  course  I  promised. 

"Five  at  twenty,  and  five  at  twenty-one,"  he  said 
to  Reuben. 

Reuben  nodded.    We  were  bowed  out. 

At  the  door  Otto  called  my  uncle  back  for  a  moment 
and  whispered  to   him.      I   overheard  what  he  said; 


136  RESPONSIBILITY 

everything  about  the  man  was  so  big  that  a  whisper  was 
a  physical  impossibility. 

"You  are  not  so  young  as  you  were,  and  must  make 
zings  easy  for  yourself.  Ven  you  vant  to  sell  cloth 
zend  me  zat  boy.  I  like  him ;  he  is  no  fool.  Bot  do 
not  send  your  son.  He  called  on  me  yesterday  and 
talked  to  me  of  bees.  I  vill  not  be  talked  to  of  beea 
by  anybody.    Gut-morning." 

That  night  as  we  sat  after  dinner,  my  aunt  sewing, 
Geoffrey  biting  his  nails — an  occupation  which  at  least 
had  the  advantage  of  preventing  him  from  whistling — 
my  uncle  looked  up  from  his  book  and  said  suddenly: 
"Where's  Little  Dorrit?" 

"What  day  is  it  ?"  asked  my  aunt. 

"Thursday." 

"Then  she's  down  at  Mrs  Chalkley's.  Friday's  her 
day  for  Mrs  Higgins.  To-night's  her  night  with  that 
horrible  butcher's  family." 

"She's  a  good  girl,  old  lady." 

"Monica's  the  sort  of  stuff  bricks  are  made  of,"  I 
said  enthusiastically.  "You  can  impress  her  mind  as 
she  makes  it  up,  and  then  it  just  sets  and  she  goes 
about  the  world  being  of  use." 

"She's  a  poor  hand  at  ferreting,"  said  Geoffrey; 
"sides  with  the  rabbits  too  much." 

Amongst  my  uncle's  good  points  was  his  refusal  to 
talk  business  before  his  daughter.  Having  assured 
himself  that  she  was  unlikely  to  be  in  until  later,  he 
mixed  a  glass  of  weak  whisky  and  water  and  began  to 
hold  forth. 

"Otto  Strumbach,"  he  said,  "is  the  most  honest  mer- 
chant in  Manchester." 

I  made  a  movement. 

"Don't  interrupt  me,  Edward ;  I  know  what  you  are 


RESPONSIBILITY  137 

going  to  say.  All  honesty  is  relative  and  Otto  is  honest 
with  himself.     He  has  his  code  and  he  keeps  to  it." 

"But  the  double  prices,  uncle." 

"A  merchant  is  not  on  oath,  my  boy.  You're  not 
compelled  to  believe  him  any  more  than  you  are  com- 
pelled to  believe  the  advocate  who  protects  the  inno- 
cence of  the  murderous-looking  ruffian  in  the  dock. 
He's  a  cunning  fellow.  Ho  gave  you  a  higher  price 
than  he  knew  he  could  have  bought  at  to  encourage  you 
to  give  him  preference  over  other  buyers  when  you 
are  really  hard  up  for  orders." 

"And  then  squeeze  me  ?" 

"Precisely." 

"Just  as  we  squeeze  the  little  manufacturers,"  I 
said. 

"I  don't  think  'squeeze'  is  a  nice  word,  dear,"  said 
my  aunt.  "Nor  do  I  think  your  tone  to  your  uncle 
is  quite  respectful.  I  wonder,  Reuben,  that  you  allow 
Edward  to  cross-examine  you." 

"I  don't  see  any  harm  in  it,  my  dear,"  said  Reuben. 
"Nonsense  can't  both  stick  in  the  lad's  head  and  come 
out  of  it  at  the  same  time.     At  least  let's  hope  not." 

"That  depends  upon  one's  capacity  for  nonsense," 
said  Monica,  bursting  in  upon  us  like  a  cheerful  hur- 
ricane and  putting  an  end  to  this  vindication  of  a 
prince  of  commerce.  "I've  a  notion  that  there's  such 
a  thing  as  spontaneous  generation  of  nonsense.  And 
if  Mrs  Chalkley's  husband  drinks  any  more  I'm  certain 
he  will  spontaneously  combust.  I  really  don't  think 
Chalkley  is  a  nice  man.  He  was  awfully  .  .  .  com- 
bustible .  .  .  to-night.  Swore  that  if  I  did  not  let 
him  kiss  me  he  would  thrash  his  old  woman  black  and 
blue." 

Her  mother  looked  up  quickly. 


138  RESPONSIBILITY 

"So  of  course  I  let  him,"  continued  Monica  lightly. 
"I  may  not  be  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  but  Chalkley 
is  certainly  a  butcher." 

"You  talk  a  great  deal  too  much  nonsense,  my  dear," 
said  her  father.  "Give  your  mother  a  kiss  and  be 
off  to  bed." 

My  uncle  continued  for  some  time  longer  to  expound 
the  whole  duty  and  conscience  of  the  trader.  I  epito- 
mise. 

XIII 

Many  a  mickle  makes  a  muckle.  A  reputation  for 
honesty  in  the  mickle  will  help  you  to  pass  the  doubtful 
muckle. 

xrv 

Take  care  that  your  pigeons  have  plenty  of  feathers 
and  that  your  sheep  are  not  short  of  wool.  In  other 
words,  never  trade  with  a  man  who  has  nothing  to  lose. 

xv 

A  reputation  for  honesty  is  the  measure  of  the 
merchant's  holding  in  that  quality.  Theft  is  not  theft 
until  it  is  found  out. 

§  vi 

And  now  to  Ashton-under-Lyne,  where  my  uncle  had 
control  over  several  concerns.  Ashton  is,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  next  door  to  Crawley  Bridge,  my  uncle 
pretending  to  prefer  that  I  should  serve  apprenticeship 
where  I  should  not  presume  upon  the  advantages  in- 
cidental to  being  the  master's  nephew.  From  the  first 
shy  advances  to  the  four-loomed  weaver  who  was  to  be 
my  master  until  such  time  as  I  was  fitted  to  be  his,  I 
was  the  passionate  friend  of  every  worker  under  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  139 

shed's  dusty  roof — a  friendship  and  a  passion  which 
have  lasted  all  my  life.  I  am  a  Socialist  whose  Social- 
ism has  never  obscured  the  fact  that  all  men  are  not 
equal  in  the  sight  of  man  whatever  they  may  be  in  the 
sight  of  God.  A  fine  phrase,  'the  sight  of  God' — though 
I  doubt  whether  it  will  stand  examination  and  whether 
its  first  user  had  the  philosophic  sense.  If  God's  vision 
includes  the  perception  of  human  values — and  with 
any  other  interpretation  the  phrase  is  meaningless — 
I  cannot  see  how  He  can  avoid  judging  man  except 
according  to  man's  treatment  of  his  kind.  Not  accord- 
ing to  his  degree  of  usefulness,  which  is  a  matter  of 
talent,  but  according  to  the  underlying  intention.  'All 
men  start  fair  in  the  perception  of  God,'  I  would  prefer 
that  the  phrase  should  read.  And  then,  only  with  in- 
finite individual  reservations  and  considerations.  I 
take  this  to  be  profound ;  it  may  very  well  be  childish. 
What  I  am  driving  at  is  that  where  there  is  not  nega- 
tion there  must  be  energy,  and  amongst  the  manifesta- 
tions of  energy  there  must  be  inequality.  I  expect  I 
have  got  the  technicalities  all  wrong;  I  had  never 
the  patience  for  jargon.  The  point  is  that  men  are 
not  equal  in  the  sight  of  man,  and  that  it  is  the  merest 
cant  to  pretend  that  they  ever  will  be. 

Socialist  though  I  am,  with  a  practical  policy  to 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  get  anybody  to  listen 
— to  wit,  first  that  no  man  who  is  willing  to  work  shall 
be  denied  the  opportunity,  and  at  a  wage  which  will 
enable  him  to  keep  body  and  soul  together,  and  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  his  wife  and  children  together  and 
a  little  bit  over;  and  second  that  no  man  however  hard 
he  may  have  worked  shall  be  allowed  to  retain  more 
than  ten  times  what  he  can  possibly  require  to  keep  his 
body  and  soul  together  and  the  bodies  and  souls  of  his 


140  RESPONSIBILITY 

wife  and  children  together  and  a  little  bit  over  for  him 
too,  all  in  strict  proportion  and  degree — Socialist  though 
I  am,  I  like  people  in  their  class  and  according  to  their 
class,  and  I  like  them  to  remain  in  their  class.  I  have 
infinite  respect  for  the  grit  and  perseverance  of  the 
self-made  man,  but  I  cannot  see  that  respect  is  due  to  his 
offspring  unless  it  exhibits  these  qualities  in  its  turn- 
Thickness  of  hide  as  a  single  qualification  I  find  it 
difficult  to  venerate. 

Take,  for  instance,  young  Walter  Buckley — "Wally" 
he  was  called  by  intimates  and  workpeople,  though 
to  tell  the  truth  the  line  of  demarcation  was  vague — 
only  son  of  old  Absalom  Buckley  and  his  inefficient 
heir.  He  comes  particularly  to  mind  as  the  only  one 
of  the  natives  with  whom  I  was  at  all  friendly  until 
I  met  Kodd.  The  Buckleys  were  carriage  folk  by  this 
time,  and  in  addition  to  their  son  had  daughters,  and 
the  daughters  had  highly  paid  maids  and  less  highly 
paid  language,  music,  drawing  and  deportment  mis- 
tresses. Other  families  in  the  district,  notably  the 
Runnels,  the  Starchleys  and  the  Rossiters  had  equally 
expensive  maids  and  equally  half -starved  governesses; 
together  they  formed  a  "set"  which  was  "at  home" 
to  one  another  on  specified  days,  and  at  the  tea-tables 
of  which  young  Wally  would  turn  up  not  quite  sober. 
Now  old  Absalom  liked  to  bring  Nonconformist  cus- 
tomers from  Manchester  to  dinner,  and  as  he  belonged 
to  the  old  school  which  made  a  principle  of  not  getting 
drunk  until  after  that  meal,  he  naturally  objected 
to  finding  his  son  very  imperfectly  self-possessed  every 
evening  at  the  hour  of  seven.  Also  it  must  be  said 
that  when  old  Absalom  objected  to  anything,  he  ob- 
jected with  that  complete  thoroughness  on  which  the 
Lancashire  man  has  always  prided  himself  (see  Kindle 


RESPONSIBILITY  141 

Wakes).  With  the  result  that  Master  Wally  had  to 
leave  his  parents'  "roof."  He  took  rooms  in  the  house 
of  the  good  lady  with  whom  I  lodged. 

I  dined  at  the  Buckleys'  once,  partly  because  I 
could  not  go  on  refusing  Wally,  partly  because  I  was 
often  hungry,  and  partly  because  the  display  of  vulgar 
wealth  has  always  amused  me.  These  dinners  would 
top  up  with  coloured  ices  in  the  shape  of  little  pigs, 
giving  rise  to  the  most  amiable  pleasantries.  It  would 
be  absurd  to  deny  that  the  manners  of  Lancashire  at 
this  date  had  a  charm  peculiarly  their  own.  But  there 
was  a  very  good  reason  why  I  should  have  ceased  to 
dine  at  this  hospitable  house. 

You  must  know  that  there  lived  in  the  town — I 
have  already  mentioned  the  family — a  rich  and  over- 
bearing old  woman  of  the  name  of  Runnel.  She  was 
the  widow  of  the  old  Joe  Runnel  who  made  an  enor- 
mous fortune  out  of  waste  and  cop-bottoms.  (What  these 
are  I  cannot  stop  to  explain.  Their  particularity  is 
unimportant;  sufficient  to  know  that  they  were  never 
yet  dealt  in  without  laying  the  foundation  of  a  fortune.) 
Old  Joe  was  a  popular  and  prominent  figure;  he 
was  more,  he  was  a  "character."  The  little  boys  in 
the  streets  would  go  about  singing  rhymes  in  which 
free  comment  was  given  to  his  eccentricities.  Any 
old  inhabitant  of  the  Bridge  will  remember  those 
interminable  verses  beginning : 

Old  Joe  Runnel 

Haa  a  belly  like  a  tunnel, 

So  run  and  get  a  funnel 

And  pour  the  whisky  in; 
He  conies  home  late  at  night 
So  very,  very  tight 
And  don't  he  get  a  fright 

When  his  Missus  lets  him  in! 


142  RESPONSIBILITY 

Joe  was  never  known  to  take  exception  to  his  popu- 
larity, although  it  may  be  imagined  to  what  extent 
ribaldry  such  as  this  grated  on  his  wife,  who  had 
originally  been  a  weaver  but  now  saw  herself  raised 
by  her  husband's  wealth  to  the  level  of  the  Starchleys 
and  the  Rossiters.  These  ladies  had  never  seen  a  loom, 
and  their  mothers  only  had  been  weavers.  Old  Joe 
cared  nothing  at  all  for  social  distinction.  He  was  a 
celebrity ;  he  had  made  his  pile  and  was  quite  ready  to 
"let  the  young  varmints  mix  it  as  they've  a  mind." 
He  even  had  the  wit  to  turn  the  familiar  jingle  to  ad- 
vantage in  the  municipal  election  in  which  he  contested 
North  Ward  in  the  electric  light  interest  against  the 
Gas  Works'  stick-in-the-mud.  His  election  address  was 
profoundly  simple.    It  ran : 

Old  Joe  Runnel 

With  his  brass  could  fill  a  tunnel, 

So  think  of  all  the  fun'll 

Come  from  spending  all  that  tin, 
He'll  chuck  it  left  and  right 
The  Coal-y  boys  to   fight 
The  Bridge's  way  to  light. 

So,  electors,  send  him  in! 

And  Reuben  romped  home,  largely  on  the  strength 
of  this  amiable  doggerel.  From  all  of  which  you  will 
realise  that  the  pronunciation  of  Old  Joe's  name  was 
fairly  well  established.  When  in  the  fullness  of  time 
the  old  fellow  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  his  widow 
conceived  the  preposterous  idea  of  doubling  the  last 
letter  of  her  name  and  throwing  the  accent  on  the  last 
syllable.  She  let  it  be  known  that  she  desired  to  be 
called  Mrs  Joseph  Runnel. 

For  years  I  had  cherished  a  grudge  against  this 
mountain  of  vulgarity,  dating  from  the  time  when  I, 


RESPONSIBILITY  143 

had  first  been  taken  by  my  aunt  and  uncle  to  a  Sunday 
evening's  supper  at  "Glen  Chamois."  The  name  in 
itself  is  a  revenue,  but  I  thirsted  for  more.  The  old 
woman  had  deeply  offended  my  dawning  Socialist  sense. 
All  the  world  knows  that  a  Sunday  supper  consists  of 
cold  beef  and  a  jacket  potato.  How  otherwise  are  the 
poor  maids  to  go  to  church  or  talk  with  their  policemen 
and  under-gardeners  ?  To  my  horror  Mrs  Joe,  as  she 
was  then  generally  called,  put  up  her  face-a-mains — 
a  piece  of  goldsmith's  ware  in  the  Byzantine  mode — 
and  consulted  a  white  marble  slab  or  miniature  tomb- 
stone, a  menu  (pronounced  may-new),  I  suppose  I 
should  call  it, 

"What,  I  wonder" — and  her  air  was  of  one  accus- 
tomed to  Royal  obsequies — "is  the  housekeeper  giving 
us  to-night?"  And  an  elaborate  hot  dinner  appeared 
for  which,  at  the  time  of  the  Buckleys'  dinner-party 
I  had  not  forgiven  her. 

Here  fortune  aided  me  by  placing  me  on  Mrs  Joe's 
"other"  side.  During  the  general  pause  which  fore- 
shadows the  end  of  dinner  I  turned  to  the  portly  dame 
visibly  preening  her  feathers  prior  to  withdrawal  and 
in  a  voice  which  could  be  heard  all  down  the  table  I 
said:  "I  regret  so  much,  dear  Mrs  Runne/£,  that  my 
aunt  and  uncle  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  a  visit 
from  you  since  old  Joe  .  .  .  since  poor  Mr  Bunnell 
died." 

"And  why  should  you  regret  it,  young  gentleman, 
may  I  ask  V 

"Because,  dear  lady,  I  should  so  much  have  en- 
joyed showing  you  round  the  stahells  and  kennels!" 

It  was  unpardonable,  I  admit. 

Wally  burst  into   a  loud  guffaw,   and  his  mother, 


144  RESPONSIBILITY 

picking  up  the  women  with  her  eyes,  led  the  way  to  the 
drawing-room. 

I  do  not  know  that  looking  back  on  the  incident  I 
am  ashamed.  I  remember  some  of  my  father's  savage 
outbursts.  He  too  held  the  pompous  in  horror,  and 
wThat's  bred  in  the  bone 

Poor  Wally.  His  was  an  entirely  dreadful  exist- 
ence. At  twenty-seven  he  was  completely  bald,  and  to 
this  day  I  can  see  the  way  his  glistening  scalp  would 
move  up  and  down  in  tenor  of  his  father  and  of  life 
in  general.  He  was  the  typical  industrial  cretin,  which 
is  quite  a  different  thing  from  the  cretin  noble  of  high 
society.  Fun  there  was  to  be  got  out  of  him,  but  it 
was  the  fun  of  teasing  an  idiot  boy.  Let  me  instance 
his  account  of  a  visit  to  the  play. 

Irving  had  appeared  in  Manchester  in  a  travesty, 
probably  by  Sardou,  of  the  life  of  Dante,  and  the 
occasion  was  one  for  a  general  sallying  forth  on  the 
part  of  the  Buckley  family,  the  girls  in  diamonds 
and  Wally  in  a  clean  collar.  The  male  part  of  the 
Lancashire  back-bone  does  not  dress  for  the  theatre. 

"I  don't  think  much  to  that  there  Dant,"  he  said, 
sheering  the  poet's  name  of  a  syllable. 

"To  what?"  said  I. 

"D-a-n-t,"  he  replied,  "that  what's  being  played  at 
the  Theatre  Royal.    But  then  I  haven't  read  the  novel !" 

There  was  nothing  in  "Wally  of  the  angry  satisfaction 
of  the  self-made  man  savaging  a  world  which  has  not 
always  been  subservient  to  him.  He  had  none  of  that 
fine  masterfulness  which  marked  old  Absalom,  the  mas- 
terfulness of  the  incident  of  the  sofa.  This  was  a 
piece  of  furniture  in  the  window  of  a  fashionable  shop 
in  King  Street,  which  had  taken  the  eye  of  old  Buck- 
ley's lady. 


RESPONSIBILITY  145 

"The  piece  forma  part  of  a  suite,  sir,  and  I  am  afraid 
cannot  be  sold  separately,"  said  the  obsequious  at- 
tendant. 

"I  don't  want  the  suite,  young  man;  I  want  that 
di-van!" 

"I  am  sorry,  sir,  but  I  am  afraid  we  cannot  separate 
them." 

"Who  the  hell's  asking  you  to  separate  'em  ?"  roared 
old  Buckley.  "Do  as  you're  bid,  young  man,  and 
pack  up  that  bloody  di-van.  I  suppose  I  can  pay  for 
the  whole  spindle-shanked  lot  if  I  want.  You  can  sell 
the  rest  of  the  sticks  where  you  like  and  credit  me 
with  aught  as  they  fetch,  seeing  as  you're  that  particu- 
lar. My  missus  wants  that  di-van  and  by  the  Holy 
Moses  she  shall  have  it." 

Wally  would  spend  his  whole  day  in  the  office  making 
out  wage  calculations,  which  were  nearly  always  wrong. 
His  evenings  he  spent  at  the  "Loom  and  Shuttle," 
emptying  pot  after  pot  of  rifty  ale.  At  ten  o'clock 
he  would  be  quarrelsome;  at  eleven,  maudlin.  At  a 
quarter  past  I  would  hear  him  come  into  the  lodgings ; 
and  at  half-past  he  would  be  sick.  There  is  a  famous 
passage  in  one  of  Zola's  novels  in  which  a  drunken  beast 
falls  asleep  in  his  own  vomit.  There  are  few  moods 
in  which  the  queasy  Englishman  has  stomach  for  lite- 
rary truth  as  the  Frenchmen  present  it ;  I  confess  that 
for  me  the  moods  were  rare  indeed  in  which  I  found 
the  actual  spectacle  less  than  discouraging.  .  .  .  On 
the  other  hand  it  must  be  admitted  that  Wally  was 
kind  to  children.  I  could  never  be  bothered  with  the 
landlady's  little  brats;  Wally  would  bring  them  toys 
and  sit  up  with  them  when  they  were  ill.  There  are 
contradictions  in  life  which  defy  resolution. 


CHAPTEK  III 


§i 


AND  then  I  fell  in  love.  A  theme  only  for  the 
writer  who  is  teased  with  a  liking  for  the 
prettier  side  of  truth.  Why,  I  wonder,  should 
it  he  necessary  to  weave  tasteful  little  veils  for  that 
great  illusion  which  Nature  has  invented  to  serve  her 
purpose  ?  All  men  are  alike  in  this,  that  their  pas- 
sions are  for  the  most  part  transient,  secondary  affairs, 
and  that  they  refuse  to  admit  it.  Shakespeare  is  our 
most  tremendous  dealer  in  this  trifle,  and  mark  how 
clearly  he  scorns  it.  Hamlet's  passion  for  Ophelia — 
a  concession  to  the  groundlings.  Macbeth's  for  his 
lady — she  should  have  died  hereafter.  Lear  with  some 
ancient  crone  to  keep  him  within  doors — think  not 
on't.  Othello — a  big  baby.  There  are  no  lovers  in 
Shakespeare  other  than  elegants  teased  by  an  interlude 
and  gormandisers  fooled  to  the  top  of  a  strumpet's 
bent.  Romeo  is  perhaps  the  lover  after  my  own  heart, 
agog  for  Rosaline  and  dying  for  her  successor  out  of 
sheer  youthfulness.  Above  all  I  dislike  the  trick  love 
has  of  putting  on  a  mask  of  devotion,  and  I  fear  the 
protective  colouring  of  passion  even  more  than  its 
satiety.  All  real  passion  is  surrender ;  by  the  woman  of 
her  body,  by  the  man  of  every  other  thing  he  holds 
dear.  Honour,  reputation,  work,  friendship,  your  de- 
vout lover  will  lay  them  all  at  what  the  poor  fool  takes 
to  be  the  feet  of  his  beloved,  whereas  he  is  but  sub- 

146 


RESPONSIBILITY  147 

xnitting  them  to  the  trampling  of  his  own  desire.  Pas- 
sion is  never  so  dangerous  as  when  it  takes  the  form 
of  abnegation.  This  achieved,  then  indeed  is  Nature 
armed  at  all  points  and  invincible. 

Since  I  have  been  in  hospital  on  this  southern  coast 
I  have  seen  a  great  French  actress  in  a  scabrous  play. 
She  portrayed,  she  was  the  vicious  depravee  for  whom 
every  fine-looking  man  is  the  coup  de  foudre,  as  our 
neighbours  say,  thunderbolt  in  plain  English.  She 
wore  Babylonish  head-gear  and  had  the  allure  of  a 
horse.  Her  wide  and  sensitive  nostrils  quivered  with 
passion,  and  yet  she  had  a  way  of  looking  sidelong 
down  that  queer  nose  of  hers  like  the  Madonnas  of  the 
early  Italians.  And,  consummate  artist  that  she  is, 
she  managed  a  note  of  self-pity  among  the  unbridled 
luxury.  To  think,  then,  that  this  witty  passion  of 
Rejane,  the  strict  fidelity  of  the  ladies  Gadgett  and 
Bunnell,  the  mutual  devotion  of  the  Steepleton  pair 
and  my  ardent  friendship  for  little  Amy  Dewhurst 
are  all  part  of  the  same  natural  lure! 

My  first  glimpse  of  Amy  was  of  a  woebegone  little 
figure  crying  bitterly  and  rubbing  its  shins  in  the 
drawing-in  room  at  Christopher  Dewhurst's.  I  am 
not  going  to  explain  in  detail  what  is  meant  by  the 
complicated  operation  known  as  drawing-in.  Sufficient 
to  say  that  a  drawer-in  was  an  operative  with  some 
physical  defect  disabling  him  from  harder  work  and 
who  sat  on  a  low  stool  and  poked  about  with  a  hook 
through  a  screen  of  miniature  bullrushes  for  the  threads 
tendered  to  him  by  an  unseen  parcel  of  humanity 
seated  on  the  other  side.  Strangers  to  a  cotton  mill 
might  have  asked  why  the  children  on  their  stools  sat 
with  their  legs  drawn  up  apprehensively  beneath  them. 
The  answer  was  to  be  found  in  the  sharp  iron  plates  on 


148  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  wooden  clog3  of  the  drawer-in — the  best  of  spurs  for 
jaded  little  slaves. 

The  shed  was  a  small  one,  rented  by  one  Christopher 
Dewhurst,  more  familiarly  known  as  "Kester"  or 
"Kit,"  who  had  begun  life  as  a  weaver,  had  risen  to 
overlooker,  and  had  finally  managed  to  scrape  together 
sufficient  money  to  buy  a  few  second-hand  looms  and 
to  be  of  interest  to  my  uncle.  Reuben  had  decided 
that  it  was  to  him  that  I  was  to  be  first  apprenticed. 
Kit  had  been  financed  by  Ackroyd  and  Marston  for 
some  years,  and  the  bleeding  process  was  nearing  its 
end.    The  little  girl  was  Kester's  younger  daughter. 

I  divined  what  was  the  child's  trouble  and  I.  put  my 
arm  round  her.     I  was  an  instant  victim  to  that  phase 
of  desire  in  which  the  very  youthful  wish  that  they 
could  die  for  the  object  of  their  adoration. 
And  immediately  the  chance  offered. 

"Come  back,  ye  little  b ,"  said  a  coarse  voice, 

which  I  recognized  as  belonging  to  Joe  Blackley,  a 
burly  savage  slightly  lame  in  one  foot.  He  could  carry 
a  beam  weighing  twice  his  own  weight  the  length  of 
the  shed  and  down  to  the  loom  and  deposit  it  as 
lightly  as  a  feather.  His  employer,  who  was  also  hi9 
uncle,  was  half  afraid  of  him,  and  indeed  he  had  an 
ugly  reputation  for  violence. 

"She's  not  coming  back,"  I  said,  in  a  voice  I  tried 
to  make  steady.  Joe  Blackley  emerged  from  behind 
his  frame. 

"What's  that  yo  say  ?" 
"She's  not  coming  back,"  I  repeated. 
The  fellow   laughed    and   spat  a   stream   of  brown 
tobacco  juice.     His  shirt  was  open  at  the  neck  and  I 
could   see  that  he  was,    after   his  kind,   magnificent. 


RESPONSIBILITY  149 

His  fist  was  enormous;  his  whole  body  despite  the 
lameness  the  splendid  animal. 

"Now  look  yo  here,  my  fine  gentleman,"  he  began, 
"let's  unerstan'  one  another.  It's  noan  yo  as  pays 
t'lass,  and  it's  noan  t'lass's  feyther  noather.  It's  me. 
Yo  pay  me  and  ah  belong  to  yo.  That's  t'law  o'  labour. 
Ah  pay  this  wench  and  she  belongs  to  me.  That's 
also  t'law  o'  labour.  If  yo  dunno  like  it,  get  into 
Parliament  and  make  some  bloody  law  as  yo  dun  like. 
But  leave  me  and  this  lass  alone  till  it  is  made,  willta." 

"She's  not  going  to  sit  on  that  stool  again,"  I  said 
as  impressively  as  I  could. 

The  fellow  did  not  answer  but  spat  again,  deliber- 
ately. Then  he  put  his  great  tattoo'd  hand  on  her 
wrist  and  gave  the  delicate  arm  a  turn  which  drove 
the  blood  from  her  face  and  all  mine  into  my  brain. 

And  I  struck  him.  It  sounds  incredible,  but  I  act- 
ually struck  Joe  Blackley.  After  which,  and  for  ap- 
parently infinite  time,  I  stood  blinking  and  wondering 
what  power  there  was  to  protect  me  from  being  ground 
to  pulp.  Joe  put  his  hand  to  his  mouth  and  seemed 
to  wonder  at  the  little  smear  of  blood.  I  think  it  was 
the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he  had  been  hit.  His 
was  a  slow-moving  rage  and  I  had  time  to  be  terribly 
frightened. 

"Joe  dear,"  said  the  girl,  and  to  this  day  I  cannot 
make  out  what  made  her  add  that  fine  "dear"  to  her 
cry  of  entreaty. 

The  big  fellow  shot  out  a  great  arm  and  fist  and  Amy 
covered  her  face  with  her  hands.  And  then  I  found 
myself  unhurt. 

"Ah  think,  mester,"  said  Joe,  "as  yo're  in  t'  reet 
and  ah'm  in  t'  wrong." 

His  shooting  out  of  his  fist  had  been  an  offer  to 


150  RESPONSIBILITY 

shake  hands,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  he  had  never 
shaken  hands  before. 

"Come  on,  lass,"  he  said,  "ah  willna  hurt  thee." 

And  Amy  went  back  to  her  place  again  and  took  up 
her  work  without  so  much  as  giving  me  a  glance. 

In  spite  of  my  terrible  desire  to  see  more  of  her  I 
avoided  the  room  as  much  as  possible  so  as  not  to  have 
the  air  of  spying  upon  Joe.  One  afternoon  in  the 
following  week  as  I  was  sitting  on  the  long  warehouse 
counter  dangling  my  legs  and  chatting  with  the  cloth- 
looker,  who  should  appear  at  the  crazy  door  but  Joe. 
I  saw  at  once  what  was  amiss  from  the  extraordinary 
look  of  compunction  on  his  handsome,  villainous  face. 

"Ah've  punnsed  t'  lass  again,"  he  said,  and  then  in 
reply  to  my  gesture,  "No,  yo  canna  see  her.  Ah've  sent 
her  whoam.  Ah'm  reet  sorry,  but  ah  conna  help  it. 
It's  my  feet  thinks  afore  my  yed.  There's  nobbud  one 
thing  for  it.  Speak  to  Kester  and  get  her  into  t'  shed. 
She's  old  enough  and  ah  shanna  be  able  to  punse  her 
theer." 

That  night  I  told  Kester  that  it  would  be  better  for 
his  daughter  that  she  should  go  to  work  at  the  loom. 
I  need  hardly  say  that  Amy  had  made  no  complaint 
to  him  and  that  I  could  not  be  disloyal  to  Joe. 

"They  all  want  to  weyve  afore  they've  strength," 
said  Kit,  "but  happen  you're  reet,  mester.  I'se  start 
her  on  Monday." 

And  now  began  my  first  experience  as  a  lover.  I 
do  not  know  that  I  contemplated  any  scope  for  my 
passion.  I  committed  all  the  pretty  follies.  Amy 
was  taken  on  as  "tender"  on  a  pair  of  looms  where, 
across  the  alley,  I  could  catch  the  glint  of  her  brown 
hair  and  the  flash  of  her  dimpled  arms.  I  would  gaze 
at  her  by  the  hour  together,  and  she  would  smile  shyly, 


RESPONSIBILITY  151 

once  in  the  morning  and  once  in  the  afternoon.  I 
avoided  making  her  ridiculous  by  too  much  attention; 
I  forbore  to  fetch  her  weft-tin  or  to  carry  the  heavy 
pieces  of  woven  cloth  from  loom  to  warehouse.  Only 
I  would  arrange  to  be  in  the  cloth-room  when  her  "cuts" 
were  brought  in,  and  stand  by  her  side  while  the  cloth- 
looker,  who  was  in  the  secret,  scolded  her  for  imaginary 
faults.  And  during  the  scolding,  which  would  be  elab- 
orate and  prolonged,  Amy  would  blush  prettily  and 
pretend  to  listen.  And  I  by  her  side  had  never  the 
courage  of  a  word.  I  remember  the  pattern  of  her 
two  print  dresses,  one  pink  the  other  blue.  I  remember 
their  texture  and  their  clean,  homely  smell.  I  remem- 
ber her  beautiful  little  hands,  delicate  and  flower-like, 
with  the  brown  trade  mark  of  oil  from  the  loom  on 
thumb  and  forefinger.  My  way  of  courting  her  was  to 
make  friends  with  her  brother,  also  a  weaver,  with 
whom  I  would  walk  home,  amazed  to  find  how  little 
store  he  set  on  his  jewelled  sister.  I  went  so  far  as 
to  join  the  Mutual  Improvement  Society,  at  which  Bob 
Dewhurst  was  a  shining  light.  I  read  papers  on  Vac- 
cination— I  think  I  must  have  been  against  that  prac- 
tice, as  I  managed  to  drag  in  a  quotation  from  Shelley 
on  Liberty — on  Capital  Punishment,  on  the  Position  of 
Women  in  the  State,  and,  of  course,  on  Tennyson.  I 
managed  to  become  really  friendly  with  Kester,  and 
would  sit  with  him  in  his  little  front  garden  after  tea 
whilst  he  smoked  his  pipe  and  talked  about  my  uncle. 
But  I  saw  surprisingly  little  of  Amy.  She  was  not 
more  than  a  fragrance  about  the  house. 

Then  one  fine  day,  after  many  mysterious  signs 
and  portents  and  with  many  circumlocutions,  I  was 
invited  to  supper. 

I   love  that  simplicity  which  translates  good   will 


152  RESPONSIBILITY 

into  terms  of  tinned  and  blushing  salmon,  of  fowls 
covered  with  a  whitey-grey  English  sauce.  I  love  the 
complicated  ceremoniousness  that  goes  to  the  carving 
of  a  lordly  ham  and  that  nice  etiquette  without  which 
crumpets  cannot  properly  be  handed  round.  I  like 
good-hearted  people  who  press  me  to  eat  ten  times 
more  than  mortal  man  has  ever  eaten.  What  in  the 
circumstances  can  be  nobler  than  bottled  beer,  and 
who  may  better  adorn  a  table's  head  than  the  florid, 
buxom  woman  of  forty-five  who  looks  as  though  she  had 
spent  the  afternoon  inside  her  oven  instead  of  before 
it?  The  good  soul  embraced  me  at  every  conceivable 
and  inconceivable  opportunity;  whenever,  for  instance, 
she  got  up  to  change  plates  or  to  lay  additional  knives 
or  to  set  entirely  supererogatory  crumpets  before  the 
fire.  She  had  the  motherliness  of  Mrs  Crupp  less  the 
nankeen  bosom,  though  she  was  not  ill  furnished  in 
that  particular.  In  fact  I  found  myself  wondering 
what  chance  there  might  be  that  so  tender  a  little  slip 
as  Amy  might  grow  up  into  so  monstrous  a  blossom. 
But  the  woman  pleased  me  enormously,  as  everything 
always  has  pleased  me  which  is  conceived  on  the  gen- 
erous scale.  And  in  sincerity  and  hospitality  Chris- 
topher Dewhurst's  wife  was  bigger  than  life-size.  There 
was  also  an  elder  daughter,  one  Leonora,  a  romantic 
personage  of  delicate  health,  who  had  found  the  mill 
too  "common"  and  had  drifted  into  hairdressing — the 
ladies'  department.  Her  talk  was  so  preponderantly  of 
fronts  and  fringes  and  "transformations,"  or  whatever 
they  were  called  in  that  day,  that  during  supper  I  bog- 
gled at  imaginary  hairs  in  the  sauce  and  for  the  rest 
of  the  evening  felt  a  curious  tickling  sensation  at  the 
back  of  my  throat. 

Bob's  nose  was  entirely  in  his  plate. 


RESPONSIBILITY  153 

"And  is  this  all  the  family?"  I  asked,  clumsily 
enough. 

Mrs  Dewhurst  looked  at  her  husband  and  put  her 
hand  to  her  bosom:  "If  tha  hasna  told  him  about  our 
Alice,  tha's  no  need  to  start  on  t'  subject  now.  She's 
ill  chosen,  poor  lass,  but  she's  none  the  only  lamb  astray 
i'  Manchester.  I  conna  bide  them  folks  as  pretends 
to  see  their  own  in  a  coffin" — the  Gadgetts  and  the 
Dewhursts  are  sisters  all  the  world  over.  "Happen 
she's  noan  waur  off  wheer  she  is  than  in  one  o'  them 
ugly  contraptions." 

Kester  opened  his  mouth  and  shut  it  again  dis- 
creetly. His  wife  mopped  one  eye  with  the  corner  of 
her  apron;  it  appeared  to  me  that  she  held  tears  in 
reserve,  an  enormous  flood  of  them  I  felt  sure.  Sud- 
denly she  asked  me  to  give  them  a  tune  on  a  piece  of 
furniture  which,  after  the  albums  and  the  flower  vases 
and  the  plush  cover  had  been  removed,  discovered  itself 
as  a  piano. 

I  soon  found  that  Amy  had  a  pretty,  piping  little 
voice  and  could  struggle  quite  nicely  through  simple 
ditties  of  her  own  choosing.  Her  singing  gave  me  the 
chance  as  I  accompanied  her  of  hanging  upon  her 
quavering  little  notes  with  all  the  tenderness  of  the 
ardent  lover.  Then  Leonora  sang  with  tragic  fervour 
As  Friends  we  Met,  as  Friends  we  Part,  a  sentimental- 
ity of  the  period.  I  can  see  her  now  in  her  dress  of 
green  cotton  velvet  and  her  air  half  Mrs  Siddons,  half 
some  painter's  Lady  of  Shallott.  My  contribution  to 
the  evening's  entertainment  was  the  performance  with, 
immoderate  brilliance  of  that  even  then  outmoded  piece 
of  musical  fireworks,  the  lamented  Ascher's  Alice  Where 
Art  Thou?  Not,  I  think,  a  very  tactful  choice  under 
the  circumstances,  but  the  best  of  pianists  is  limited 


154  RESPONSIBILITY 

to  his  repertoire  and  this  happens  to  be  the  only  piece 
I  have  ever  been  able  to  learn  by  heart. 

But  folk  who  get  up  at  five  in  the  morning  have 
to  go  to  bed  betimes,  so  at  an  early  hour  I  said  good- 
bye. Amy  put  her  hand  into  mine  for  a  moment  and 
I  held  it  gentlier  than  a  captive  bird.  Leonora  flung 
out  a  magnificent  arm ;  throughout  the  evening  her  ges- 
tures had  been  superb. 

"As  friends  we  met  ..."  she  said  archly. 

"As  friends  we  part,"  I  gallantly  replied. 

Brother  Bob  had  gone  to  bed  immediately  after 
supper. 

Mrs  Dewhurst  embraced  me  in  a  manner  that  I  can 
only  describe  as  voluminous.  She  then  kissed  her 
daughters,  who  pecked  back  in  return. 

"Oh,  pa,"  exclaimed  Leonora,  as  she  chose  for  the 
bestowal  of  her  chaste  caress  a  spot  on  the  parental 
crown,  "oh,  pa,  your  scalp  is  awful!" 

This  was  the  first  of  many  similar  evenings. 

Dear,  delightful  people. 

§ii 
All  this  part  of  my  life  is  fused  into  the  tiny  pres- 
ence and  personality  of  Amy.  In  her  is  bound  up 
the  recollection  of  long  summer  days  under  the  low 
glass  roof  when  men  and  women  sweated  and  swore  and 
thirsted  and  discarded  all  but  such  clothes  as  would 
decently  cover  them,  and  Amy  alone  remained  cool. 
Even  now  the  slanting  rays  of  an  August  sun  bring 
back  an  old  day's  accumulated  odours,  the  rancid  smell 
of  loom  oil,  the  sour  stench  of  decomposing  flour,  the 
staleness  of  human  sweat.  Oh,  that  nostalgia  and  phys- 
ical memory  of  the  senses,  bringing  back  the  first  in- 
stinctive sympathy  with  the  factory  hand  aaad,  by  anal- 


RESPONSIBILITY  155 

ogy,  with  all  toilers!  I  remember  my  curious  attitude 
on  the  first  return  home  after  contact  with  the  mill 
hands — shame  that  I  had  descended  to  their  level,  con- 
tempt for  those  who  held  themselves  above  it.  I  was 
an  earnest  reader  of  Tennyson  at  that  time  and  knew 
better  than  any  critical  big-wig  how  infinitely  apposite 
to  the  emptying  of  a  skip  of  bobbins  is  "the  scream  of 
a  madden'd  beach  dragg'd  down  by  the  wave." 

And,  of  course,  my  senses  could  not  have  escaped 
the  unusual  stir.  I  should  like  to  say  that  even  to-day 
I  cannot  hear  the  whir  of  machinery  or  the  sudden 
crescendo  of  an  opening  door  without  a  vision  of  a 
pretty  childlike  face.  .  .  .  But  what  insincere  non- 
sense this  would  be!  I  have  forgotten  her  and  there 
is  not  an  ache  left  in  me.  I  am  really  putting  down 
what  in  that  remote  time  I  would  have  sworn  to  be  my 
feelings  now.  I  suppose  Amy  must  have  been  pretty. 
Looking  backwards  and  with  the  aid  of  a  cheap  photo- 
graph, I  see  only  a  fringe,  a  loose  mouth  and  a  pleasant 
commonness. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  during  all  this  period 
I  learned  nothing  about  spinning,  nothing  about  weav- 
ing and  nothing  about  machinery.  I  still  fail  to  un- 
derstand why,  when  a  piston  has  once  been  ejected,  it 
should  take  the  trouble  to  turn  the  other  cheek  as  it 
were,  and  submit  itself  for  re-expulsion.  There  are 
people  who  allege  this  sort  of  thing  to  be  comprehen- 
sible; good  luck  to  them,  say  I.  Equally  little  did  I 
gather  of  what  my  uncle  called  the  "general  trend  of 
business."  Reuben  would  insist  upon  long  talks  every 
Sunday  evening,  asking  casually  after  Kester's  relations 
with  his  bank  manager,  whether  his  accounts  for  yarn 
were  paid  regularly  and  a  hundred  other  significant 
questions  to  which  I  confess  I  answered  according  to 


156  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  spur  and  invention  of  the  moment.  Then  Eeuben 
suggested  that  I  might  do  worse  than  make  a  chum 
of  Wally  Buckley. 

"But  he's  always  drunk,"  I  objected. 

"Drunk  or  sober,  he's  the  son  of  his  father,"  Eeuben 
replied.  And  then  he  informed  me  that  he  considered 
me  proficient  in  weaving  and  that  I  was  shortly  to 
go  to  Greenwood  and  Birtwistle's  to  learn  overlooking, 
and  then  on  to  Longshaw's,  where  I  was  to  study  warp- 
ins;  and  "slashing." 

"And  mind  you,"  he  added,  "it  isn't  the  working 
folk  as  I  want  you  to  hob-nob  with;  it's  the  bosses. 
Capital's  your  friend,  not  Labour." 

The  change  to  Greenwood's  was  a  real  grief  to  me, 
but  a  grief  assuaged  by  the  thick  tea  I  was  by  this 
time  expected  to  make  at  Kester's  every  Friday  night. 
I  have  often  wondered  as  to  the  attitude  towards  me 
of  these  good  people.  I  imagine  that  they  were  con- 
scious of  none  and  accepted  me  in  simple  friendliness. 
They  felt,  I  believe,  that  they  could  trust  me,  and 
besides,  Amy  was  now  sixteen,  an  age  in  Lancashire  at 
which  a  girl  is  expected  to  be  able  to  look  after  herself. 
As  for  the  two  of  us,  we  were  children  together,  and 
the  utmost  of  my  ardour  was  the  kissing  of  her  hand, 
which  amazing  feat  I  accomplished  once,  tremblingly. 

It  was  about,  this  time  that  Geoffrey  was  admitted 
to  partnership  in  the  firm,  an  event  which  caused 
singularly  little  stir  in  our  small  world.  Reuben  had 
long  known  his  son  to  be  a  fool,  whilst  the  underpaid 
and  underfed  clerks  were  indifferent.  Geoffrey  himself 
signalised  his  accession  to  dignity  by  whistling  for  two 
whole  hours  instead  of  the  usual  hour  and  three-quart- 
ers. I  cannot  record  any  change  in  his  manner  to  me 
except,  perhaps,  a  more  persistent  recommendation  of 


RESPOXSIBILITY  157 

the  works  of  Sir  John  Lubbock.  But  the  considerable 
knowledge  of  my  cousin  to  which  I  had  now  attained 
had  led  me  to  formulate  a  principle  unknown  to  mathe- 
maticians and  which  goes  by  the  high-sounding  name  of 
the  Non-increasibility  of  Xothing.  More  simply,  add 
something  to  nothing  and  nothing  remains.  Geoffrey 
was  the  nullest  creature  imaginable ;  no  dignity  exists 
which  could  have  increased  him.  I  do  not  know  why 
he  should  figure  so  persistently  in  this  history;  per- 
haps it  is  because  I  cannot  rid  myself  of  the  old  spleen 
of  having  been  chained  to  him  for  the  greater  part  of 
my  youth.  I  imagine  that  the  wretch  who  has  known 
fetters  for  twenty  years  can  never  quite  forget  them. 

And  then  I  ran  across  an  old  friend  and  made 
acquaintance  with  a  new  one  who  was  to  show  me  that 
neither  the  Bridge  nor  Ashton-under-Lvne  was  the 
centre  of  the  universe,  nor  yet  Manchester  its  hub. 
I  do  not  believe  that  there  was,  with  the  exception  of 
Westrom  and  my  new  friend,  Claud  Rodd,  a  single 
human  being  drawing  breath  at  Crawley  Bridge  capable 
of  grasping  that  beyond  Manchester  there  is  London, 
and  beyond  London  Paris,  and  that  even  Paris  is  not 
the  end  of  the  world.  And  I  suppose  that  when  ulti- 
mately I  turned  my  back  upon  Manchester  it  was 
largely  because  of  that  city's  astonishing  conviction 
that  there  is  no  other  place  better  worth  living  in, 
one  conglomeration  of  citizenlv  bricks  very  much  like 
another.  Only  they  who  have  trudged  the  streets  of 
the  Bridge  on  wet  Saturday  nights,  or  patrolled,  Sun- 
days, the  desolation  of  the  Oxford  Road,  only  those 
driven  by  sheer  desperation  of  ennui  to  debauch  without 
charm,  only  those  who  have  suffered  from  a  Manchester 
at  rest  can  realise  that  spirit  which  has  made  England 
what  she  is.     It  is  many  years  since  I  was  in  my 


158  RESPONSIBILITY 

native  city ;  reports  as  recent  as  the  year  before  the  war 
relate  that  her  greybeards  still  held  classical  concerts 
on  Sunday  evenings  to  be  subversive  of  morality.  Elo- 
quence and  to  spare  as  to  classical  music  destructive  of 
the  sanctity  of  the  home.  ...  It  would  seem  that 
still,  even  as  in  my  time,  must  city  fathers  mow  and 
gibber.     Cocasse !     Cocasse ! 

I  ran  across  Westrom  in  the  back  room  of  the  little 
confectioner's  shop  where  the  elite  of  the  Bridge  took 
lunch.  Entering  by  the  side  door  to  avoid  congestion 
in  the  front  of  the  shop,  one  squeezed  past  whoever 
happened  to  be  washing  his  hands  at  a  little  tap  and 
font  cut  in  the  right  wall  of  the  passage  and  lifted 
the  latch  of  the  door  on  the  left.  You  followed  the 
old  established  custom  of  bowing  to  the  dozen  pairs 
of  jaws  fulfilling  their  destiny  and  hard  at  it.  You 
said  " Good-morning,  gentlemen,"  and  followed  up  that 
salutation  with  an  expression  of  opinion  as  to  whether 
the  rain  would  hold  off  or  continue.  Oh,  the  cheer- 
fulness of  the  commercial  traveller!  I  have  never 
been  able  to  make  out  whether  it  is  supervaliance  or 
mere  anaesthesia.  Certain  I  am  that  no  depression  in 
trade,  no  loss  of  wife,  no  new  disgrace  of  prodigal 
son  or  wanton  daughter  could  have  occasioned  a  diminu- 
tion in  the  gallantry  of  little  Briggs,  whose  line  was 
ladies'  ware. 

"ISTo  need  to  ask  how  you  do,  Mrs  Bowkett" — Mrs 
Bowkett,  nee  Ramsden,  was  the  proprietress.  "Pork 
to-day,  is  it?  And  cabbage?  And  do  I  spy  apple 
sauce?  'Pon  my  soul,  ma'am,  if  there  weren't  no 
Bowkett  and  there  weren't  no  Mrs  Briggs,  there's  no 
saying  what  might  happen." 

Custom  was  not  supposed  to  stale  this  sally,  at  whicE 
the  table  roared  for  such  time  as  I  remained  at  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  159 

Bridge.  Then  whom  one  day  should  I  find  seated 
in  the  midst  of  these  little  people,  gravely  courteous 
and  even  affable,  but  Westrom,  whose  fag  I  had  been 
at  school.  He  had  been  appointed  manager  of  the 
Crawley  Bridge  branch  of  the  great  banking  concern 
known  as  the  Kinder  Bank,  and  was  now  a  grown  man 
with  what  it  is  proper  to  call  immense  responsibilities. 
These,  he  explained  to  me,  consisted  in  transacting 
business  on  lines  laid  down  by  directors  in  their  dotage, 
with  never  the  swerve  of  a  hair's-breadth  in  the  di- 
rection of  progress  or  common-sense  permitted  until 
such  had  been  duly  approved  by  higher  authority.  It 
is  in  my  mind  that  bigger  institutions  than  the  Kinder 
Bank  have  been  run  on  similar  lines.  Was  the  ration 
of  coal  for  the  manager's  office  exceeded  by  a  single 
scuttle,  then  must  Derby  be  placated.  Did  a  gale  of 
wind  blow  the  roof  off  the  bank,  then  must  Derby  be 
consulted  before  tacking  it  on  again.  "They  chose 
me,"  said  Westrom,  "out  of  eight  hundred  candidates 
on  the  recommendation  of  a  bishop,  and  then  they 
treat  me  like  a  pickpocket  descended  from  a  line  of 
gaol-birds.  Upon  my  head  they  place  a  fruitless  crown 
and  put  a  barren  sceptre  in  my  gripe.  I  forget  how 
many  millions  a  year  pass  through  my  hands ;  I  know 
that  I  may  not  spend  tuppence-ha'penny  off  my  own 
bat."  He  was,  he  told  me,  the  youngest  branch  man- 
ager in  the  bank,  a  position  to  which  he  had  attained 
through  a  talent  for  suffering  his  chiefs  gladly.  And 
then  I  found  out  that  he  was  married — astonishing 
thing  to  have  happened  to  a  man  with  whom  one  has 
been  at  school. 

"Come  and  have  tea  with  my  wife,"  he  said.  "You'll 
meet  a  queer  chap  called  Bodd.    A  capital  fellow." 

Claud   Bodd  was   one   of  the   personalities  of  the 


160  RESPONSIBILITY 

Bridge.  There  was  something  Mephistophelian  about 
the  cadaverous  figure  to  he  seen  from  nine  in  the  morn- 
ing until  nine  at  night  on  the  other  side  of  the  plate- 
glass  window  of  the  little  music  shop  situated  in  that 
part  of  the  town  known  as  Shufflebottom's  Cross.  His 
long,  lean  nose  would  be  buried  and  his  whole  being 
engrossed  for  hours  together  in  green,  paper-backed 
volumes  from  which  he  would  rouse  himself  to  attend 
to  customers  with  a  gesture  very  like  that  of  despair. 
He  would  offer  you  your  roll  of  music  with  the  tip  of 
his  shrinking  finger  and  disdain  to  pick  up  your  money 
until  you  had  left  the  shop.  It  was  rare  that  he  gave 
you  more  than  one-eighth  of  his  attention.  For  thirty 
shillings  a  week  he  dispensed  E  strings,  resin,  seventeen- 
and-sixpenny  fiddles,  mouth-organs,  Methods  by  Easy 
Stages,  Songs  Without  Words  (Mendelssohn)  and 
English  songs,  alas!  with  words.  The  shop  was  also 
a  circulating  library,  whose  customers  took  what  Fate 
in  the  person  of  out-at-elbows  Mr  Rodd  chose  to  give 
them. 

"Trickett's  have  such  nice,  suitable  books ;  you  can't 
go  wrong,"  was  the  verdict  of  Mrs  Twinney,  the  Vicar's 
wife,  imposing  upon  the  Bridge  in  the  same  way  that 
Horatia  Gadgett  imposed  upon  our  home  parish. 

"How  do  you  manage  to  fit  them  all  so  exactly?" 
I  asked  Rodd  some  time  after  I  got  to  know  him. 

"Same  as  boots,"  he  replied.  "You  measure  'em. 
Some  of  the  poorer  class  need  a  bit  of  handling,  say 
a  diagnosis ;  it  matters  to  them  what  they  read.  But 
the  rich,  churchy  people  are  all  alike.  They  think 
they  believe  in  the  Bible;  I  know  they  believe  in  the 
Parish  Magazine.  Rum  thing,  provincial  taste.  It's 
the  one  stable  thing  in  an  unstable  universe.     Or  let's 


RESPONSIBILITY  161 

say  stationary.  I  don't  believe  it  can  deteriorate,  and 
I  know  it  doesn't  improve." 

My  first  encounter  with  Claud,  after  the  common- 
places over  Mrs  Westrom's  tea-cups,  had  not  opened 
too  auspiciously.  I  had  gone  into  the  shop  casually 
and  asked  if  they  had  anything  to  read. 

"We've  books,"  said  Rodd,  looking  savagely  at  me 
across  the  counter  and  with  his  head  lowered  as  though 
for  a  charge.  "Printed  matter.  Words,  sentences, 
chapters.     Leaves  and  a  binding." 

And  he  waved  a  threatening  arm. 

"Can  you  let  me  have  a  look  at  one  of  those  little 
green  volumes  you're  always  buried  in?"  I  hazarded 
nervously. 

"That  depends.    Can  you  read  French  ?" 

"I  can  get  along." 

He  put  down  the  paper-back  he  had  in  his  hand 
and  looked  me  up  and  down  slowly  and  deliberately. 

"I  can't  let  you  have  a  look,  as  you  put  it.  These 
little  green  chaps  are  my  Bible.  I  mean  they  are  to 
me  what  the  Bible  is  to  the  priest,  and  probably  a 
great  deal  more.  They  are  my  Balzac.  And  you  want 
to  have  what  you  call  a  look  at  them.  Well,  you  can't. 
I  suppose  you've  been  turning  over  the  Droll  Stories 
at  the  tobacconist's.  I  can  see  you've  been  prying 
through  his  window.  Why,  man,  your  nose  is  still  flat 
from  the  pane." 

I  was  considerably  startled. 

"That's  the  worst  of  the  hypocritical  English.  You 
are  afraid  of  great  writers  until  you  come  across  some 
little  bit  which  is  supposed  to  be  filthy,  and  then  you 
hug  that  little  bit  of  so-called  filth  and  revel  over  it 
in  secret.  You  don't  know  what  a  big  man  is.  Do 
you  suppose  I  could  breathe  the  air  of  this  stuffy  little 


162  RESPONSIBILITY 

shop  and  stuffy  little  town  and  mix  with  your  smug, 
stuffy  little  people  if  I  hadn't  something  here?"  And 
he  hit  the  book  a  tremendous  blow.  "There  are  forty- 
odd  volumes,  nearly  fifty,  and  I've  read  twenty-three. 
When  I've  finished  the  lot  I'm  off." 

"Where  to?"  I  asked,  moved  by  such  a  whirlwind 
of  sincerity.  ISTobody  at  the  Bridge  in  those  days  was 
ever  known  to  show  sign  of  emotion  except  in  con- 
nection with  beer  and  football. 

"London  or  hell,  anywhere  out  of  this."  He  waved 
an  arm  to  include  the  shop,  me,  Mrs  Trickett,  Shuffle- 
bottom's  Cross,  Crawley  Bridge. 

"I'm  not  really  insane,"  he  went  on,  "but  I've  no 
one  to  talk  to,  and  sometimes  I  think  I  must  talk 
or  go  mad.  But  if  you  really  do  want  to  read  Balzac 
and  to  read  him  seriously  I  could  put  you  up  to  him. 
Let  me  see  now.  You  could  begin  with  Eugenie  Gran- 
det,  but  he  wrote  it  for  his  nieces,  and  that's  a  draw- 
back. And  then  there's  La  Cousine  Bette.  Hulot's  fine, 
and  if  you  can  relish  him  you've  got  the  proper  stomach. 
But,  really,  I  think  you  couldn't  do  better  than 
Le  Pere  Goriot.  'Madame  Vauquer,  nee  de  Con- 
flans  .  .  .'  What's  her  maiden  name  to  do  with  it  ?  you 
may  say.  Well,  if  you  can't  get  hold  of  the  significance 
of  that,  Balzac  is  not  for  you." 

I  said  humbly  that  I  would  do  my  best  to  struggle 
with  the  mysterious  significance. 

"Very  well,  then,"  he  said.  "Now  I'll  put  you  to 
the  test.     Do  you  know  the  Twinney  woman  ?" 

"The  Vicar's  wife?     Yes,"  I  answered. 

"Call  on  her?" 

"When  I  have  to." 

"Then   take  this  book.      It's  the   first  volume  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  163 

Splendeurs  et  Miseres  des  Courtisanes.  I  suppose  you 
know  what  that  means." 

I  nodded. 

"Next  time  you  call,  leave  it  on  her  drawing-room 
table.  Then  write  and  ask  her  whether  you  did  not 
leave  a  book  by  mistake.  Put  the  title  in  full  and 
write  it  big,  so  that  she  can't  pretend  it's  a  translation 
of  Adam  Bede.  If  you  are  up  to  this,  you  are  a 
Balzacian." 

I  demurred  a  little. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  bothering  about  the  good  taste  of  it. 
I  want  to  know  what  you  sure  worth.  Call  it  an  initia- 
tion if  you  like." 

I  left  the  shop  under  engagement  and  with  the  first 
volume  of  Splendeurs  in  my  hand. 

Ten  days  later  I  walked  into  Trickett's  and  with  a 
superb  gesture  flung  on  the  counter  the  outraged 
Twinney's  replv.     It  ran: 

"Mrs  Twinney  regrets  that  Mr  Marston  should  have 
left  in  her  house,  and  where  the  Vicar  might  have  seen 
it,  the  book  alluded  to.  Mrs  Twinney  will  not  e^ve 
Mr  Marston  the  trouble  of  calling  in  person  as  she  is 
sending  the  volume,  under  cover,  by  her  maid." 

And  that  evening  found  me  absorbed  in  the  furniture 
and  inmates  of  a  French  boarding-house  kept  by  a 
certain  Madame  Vauquer,  nee  de  Conflans. 

§  iii 

The  last  days  of  1893  were  marked  by  the  great 
Crawley  Bridge  Pit  Disaster.  I  have  no  wish  to  sadden 
these  pages  with  a  highly-wrought  account  of  the  catas- 
trophe and  computations  of  the  numbers  of  maimed 


164  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  killed.  Numbers  by  themselves  mean  little.  In 
one  of  our  recent  excursions  from  hospital — we  take 
the  air,  you  know — I  discovered  in  a  tiny  Roman 
Catholic  church  a  form  of  intercession  for  the  one 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  souls  who  must  each  day 
pass  into  another  state.  Is  this  the  world's  death-rate 
or  the  mortality  amongst  the  faithful  ?  Are  the  millions 
of  India  and  China  included  ?  One  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  death-beds!  The  thing  is  unthinkable;  con- 
sider the  stir  of  a  single  woe. 

The  disaster  at  the  Crawley  Bridge  pit  found  me  an 
interested  and  absorbed  spectator.  The  scene  was 
classical  in  its  fidelity  to  tradition — the  beshawled 
and  ill-kempt  rush  to  the  pithead,  the  flare  of  lights 
in  the  darkness,  the  fussiness  of  officials,  the  agonising 
waits,  the  rumours  and  counter-rumours,  the  haphazard 
heroism,  the  frantic  joy,  the  huddled  woe.  I  went 
through  it  as  a  spectator,  hardly  conscious  of  that  dread 
aspect  of  the  affair  in  which  one  hundred  and  forty 
souls  were  hurled  into  eternity  with,  as  the  phrase 
goes,  oaths  and  jests  on  their  lips.  The  menace  is  idle. 
~No  man  were  the  worse  for  dying  in  laughter  and 
ribaldry  who  has  so  lived.  Man  is  to  be  judged  by 
his  fashion  on  a  lusty  day  when  health  and  nerve  are 
good  and  death  is  a  long  way  off.  ...  I  remember 
later  the  huge  common  grave,  the  plain  white  coffins 
hastily  tacked  together.  And  most  extraordinary  of 
all,  a  recollection  of  Rodd  in  the  funeral  crowd,  weep- 
ing and  half  distraught. 

"My  poor  brave  lads,"  was  all  he  could  say,  "my 
poor  brave  lads." 

Westrom  was  there  looking  stern  and  ill  at  ease,  in 
a  group  with  the  colliery  proprietors  among  whom 
I  noted  old  Absalom  Buckley  and  his  son  Wally,  fright- 


RESPONSIBILITY  165 

ened  to  soberness.  Among  the  miners  killed  was  a 
humble  youth  who  had  been  disdainfully  rejected  by 
Amy's  sister,  the  proud  and  mannered  Leonora.  In 
life  the  pretensions  of  the  lad  had  been  ignored;  in 
death  they  gave  importance  to  Leonora's  family.  With 
a  natural  desire  to  bo  as  much  to  the  fore  in  the 
event  as  anybody  else,  the  Dewhursts  gave  out'  that 
~Na.t  had  never,  after  all,  been  forbidden  to  hope,  and 
that  there  was  no  knowing  but  that  Leonora  might  not 
ultimately  have  condescended.  The  family  was  there- 
fore apt  for  much  visiting  and  condoling,  and  stout, 
perspiring  Mrs  Kester  sat  for  three  days  in  the  front 
parlour  assuring  visitors  that  Leonora  was  "that  up- 
set" that  since  the  tragedy  she  had  neither  bitten  nor 
supped.  In  reality  Leonora  was  busy  upstairs  compos- 
ing a  costume  in  which  on  the  day  of  the  funeral  she 
should  come  near  to  compassing  the  Tragic  Muse. 

The  disaster  was  the  occasion  for  one  of  my  uncle's 
epistolary  flights.  I  had  suggested,  in  that  impulsive 
way  so  little  pleasing  to  men  of  business,  that  it  would 
be  a  graceful  thing  for  the  firm  as  a  firm  to  send  a 
subscription  to  the  fund  in  aid  of  the  bereaved  families. 
I  had  begged  to  be  allowed  to  contribute  out  of  my 
capital  an  amount  equal  to  Geoffrey's  share  in  any 
such  contribution.  Here  is  my  uncle's  reply — concise 
and   damnable. 

Oakwood, 
29th  December  1893. 

My  deae  Nephew, — I  have  your  letter  in  which 
you  suggest  that  the  firm  as  a  firm  should  subscribe 
to  the  Crawley  Bridge  Colliery  Explosion  Relief  Fund. 
I  cannot  agree  to  this.  Ackroyd  and  Marston  is  a 
business  firm  having  partners  of  different  ages,  con- 
nections and  ideals,  who  can  neither  legally  nor  practi- 


166  RESPONSIBILITY 

cally  dispose  of  any  of  the  firm's  money  except  for 
the  prosecution  of  the  business  of  the  firm.  It  would 
not  be  fair  to  my  junior  partner  or  partners  that  I 
should  give  subscriptions  in  the  name  of  the  firm,  a  por- 
tion of  which  they  would  be  obliged  to  contribute,  and 
I  certainly  object  to  their  giving  donations  a  major 
portion  of  which  will  come  out  of  my  pocket.  My 
personal  subscription  list  amounts  to  over  £500  a 
year,  but  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  of  the 
objects  of  my  charity  would  arouse  the  sympathy  of 
my  junior  partner  or  partners.  I  have,  through  what  is 
now  a  long  life,  learnt  that  money  dispensed  through 
certain  charitable  agencies  is  well  disposed.  But  my 
partner  or  partners  have  not  had  the  same  experience 
and  might  reasonably  object  were  I  to  give  in  the  name 
of  the  firm  and  at  their  expense.  I  claim  for  myself 
the  same  freedom  which  I  am  willing  to  accord  to 
them. 

I  cannot  see  the  application  of  your  principle  that 
"great  national  calamities  should  be  a  charge  on  the 
State."  What  is  a  "national  calamity"  and  by  what 
are  we  to  distinguish  it  from  a  local  one  ?  Does  thi9 
depend  upon  the  area  affected  or  the  number  of  lives 
imperilled?  lSTor  do  I  see  how  subscription  by  firms 
"approaches  an  ideal  of  alleviation  by  the  State  which 
might  sow  the  seeds  of  national  insurance."  Any 
scheme  of  national  insurance  must  involve  contribution 
by  every  member  of  the  community,  including  the 
recipient  of  the  benefaction.  Contribution  by  firms 
would  simply  mean  voluntary  donation  by  a  small 
portion  of  the  community.  I  am  myself  no  Socialist.  I 
regard  the  exercise  of  voluntary  charity  as  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  discipline  of  life,  and  I  can  never 
agree  to  divest  myself  of  the  responsibility  of  dealing 


RESPONSIBILITY  167 

with  the  means  which  God  has  granted  me  according 
to  the  conscience  which  He  has  put  into  me. 

I  alone  am  responsible  that  the  amount  of  capital 
standing  to  your  credit  in  the  books  of  the  firm  shall 
remain  intact  until  you  attain  to  twenty-five  years  of 
age.  I  cannot  listen  to  the  suggestion  that  you  should 
be  allowed  to  fritter  away  any  portion  of  it. 

Wishing  you  all  seasonable  things,  I  am,  your  affec- 
tionate uncle,  Keuben  Ackeoyd. 

It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  in  the  list  of  subscriptions 
a  sum  of  one  hundred  pounds  figured  against  my 
uncle's  name. 

And  then  Amy  fell  ill. 

The  doctor  bade  us  be  of  good  cheer  and  not  too 
hopeful.  She  lay  in  her  darkened  room  day  in  and 
day  out,  week  after  week,  her  beautiful  hair  cut  short, 
her  little  face  wasted  and  drawn,  her  hands  once 
so  cool  and  flower-like  now  hot  and  fretful.  Every 
afternoon  I  would  steal  away  from  the  mill  and  spend 
half-an-hour  at  her  bedside,  returning  at  night  to 
watch  Kester  smoke  his  anxious  pipe  by  the  corner  of 
the  fire.  The  two  women  were  splendid.  I  had  ex- 
pected an  ecstasy  of  fuss  from  the  mother,  purposeless 
rushings  up  and  down  stairs  and  futile  scurryings  to 
and  fro.  I  had  looked  for  a  whole  gallery  of  tragic 
airs  from  Leonora.  I  was  certainly  not  prepared  for 
the  fortitude  and  quiet  confidence  which  they  exhibited 
and  inspired.  The  whole  house  was  heavy  with  creosote, 
of  which  the  scent  to-day  brings  back  Amy  more  clearly 
than  any  amount  of  careful  retrospection.  One  after- 
noon I  brought  her  one  of  those  new-fangled  trinklets 
then  springing  into  vogue — a  watch  hanging  from  a 
lover's  knot  in  metal.     The  bow  was  worn  on  the  breast, 


168  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  save  for  the  fact  that  the  wearer  whilst  advertising 
the  time  to  all  the  world  was  unahle  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  it  herself,  the  device  was  ideal.  As  I  hent  over  the 
child  to  fasten  the  watch  on  her  little  gown  she  put 
her  arms  round  my  neck  and  whispered:  "I'm  not  going 
to  die,  Mr  Ned,  am  I?" 

"Of  course  not,  Amy,"  I  answered.  "How  can  you 
think  of  it,  with  all  of  us  making  poultices  and  shaking 
medicine  bottles  and  buying  beautiful  watches." 

"Very  well  then,  I  won't,"  she  said  brightly;  "that 
settles  it." 

By  the  first  warm,  sunny  days  of  May  I  was  able  to 
take  her  as  far  as  the  prim  park  with  the  rustic  benches, 
old  Buckley's  gift  to  Crawley  Bridge.  There  we  would 
sit  facing  that  gentleman's  image  in  white  marble  with 
whiskers  like  grace-notes.  There  we  would  sit  in  the 
sun  and  listen  to  the  barrel  organ  grinding  out: 

Oh!   Lizer!   Sweet  Lizer! 
If  yer  die  an  old  maid  you'll  'ave  only  yerself  to  blame! 

D'y  'ear  Lizer?     Dear  Lizer! 
'Ow  d'yer  fancy  'Awkins   for  yer   other  name? 

And  then  would  come  the  crooning  body  of  the  song, 

and  I  would  murmur  in  Amy's  ear: 

She  wears  an  artful  bonnet, 
Feathers  stuck  upon  it, 
Coverin'  a  fringe  all  curled; 
She's  just  about  the  sweetest, 
Prettiest  and  neatest 
Doner  in   the  wide,  wide  world. 

And  I  suppose  that  is  as  far  as  ever  I  got  towards 
love-making.  Our  relations  were  undefined  and  I  was 
glad  to  have  them  so.  "You'll  never  marry  my  lass," 
said  Kester,  "but  I  can  trust  you,  Mr  Ned,  noan  from 
here  to  the  park  but  to  the  end  of  the  world  if  need 
be'7 


RESPONSIBILITY  169 

And  then  Amy  had  a  relapse.  She  caught  a  chill 
through  prolonging  a  golden  afternoon  till  the  shadow 
of  old  Buckley  grew  positively  alarming.  This  time 
Death  was  in  an  angrier  mood  and  came  near  to  getting 
the  better  of  devotion.  And  I  to  losing  my  reason. 
It  is  a  humiliating  thing  to  reflect  that  a  few  short 
years  should  completely  efface  a  passion  of  which  the 
keynote  has  been  eternity.  In  my  trouble  I  sought  the 
confidence  of  Monica,  who  was  holidaying  in  the  Lake 
District  with  her  brother.     This  is  what  she  wrote: 

My  deabest  Neddie, — So  you  have  found  her,  and 
I  am  not  going  to  say  any  of  the  things  you  are  ex- 
pecting me  to  say.  You  are  certainly  in  the  mood  to 
hate  anybody  who  would  dissuade  you  from  doing  a 
noble  thing.  I  do  not  gather  exactly  what  noble  thing 
it  is  that  you  contemplate,  but  I  am  sure  that  you  will 
be  fine  and  generous.  All  that  I  can  make  out  from 
your  letter  is  that  the  little  lady  is  "possessed  of  great 
beautie,"  that  she  is  ill  and  that  you  are  afraid  of 
losing  her.  Let  me  say  at  once  that  she  will  recover, 
which  is  all  the  more  reason  why  I  should  add  her 
name,  which  you  have  not  told  me,  to  my  little  list  of 
people  to  be  prayed  for. 

At  heart  you  are  a  very  nice  boy,  though  like  every- 
body who  wants  to  be  an  artist  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
things  that  you  must  be  intensely  selfish.  But  I  don't 
see  why,  in  time  and  with  practice,  you  should  not  get 
to  care  for  this  little  lady  better  than  for  vourself. 
At  present  what  you  are  in  love  with  is  the  image  of 
her  which  you  make  to  yourself  for  your  devotion.  Now 
this  is  really  indulging  in  the  extremest  form  of  selfish- 
ness, but  it  is  a  form  so  beautiful  that  it  deceives  even 
Shakespeare's  lovers.      I   believe   you   can   make   the 


170  RESPONSIBILITY 

innocent  little  thing  happy.  You  write  of  a  "sacred 
trust,"  which  is  a  very  pretty  phrase,  but  you  will 
have  to  take  care  that  the  sacred  trust  does  not  degener- 
ate into  a  burden.     And  then  vou  use  the  word  "cheru- 

*J 

bim."  Here  I  can't  follow  you.  All  I  know  about 
these  little  people  is  that  like  the  seraphim  they  "con- 
tinually do  cry." 

For  goodness'  sake  don't  let's  have  any  nonsense 
about  educating  her.  Can't  you  see  that  she  is  educat- 
ing you?  Whilst  you  are  ransacking  your  great  brain 
for  some  abstruse  reference  the  poor  child  is  probably 
expressing  some  simple  thought  which  has  just  occurred 
to  her,  and  by  putting  it  naturally  is  also  putting  it 
beautifully.  Don't  worry  about  the  social  status.  We 
shall,  of  course,  want  to  see  a  lot  of  her,  and  I  will 
take  mother  by  the  hand  and  point  out  the  charming 
little  ideas  the  child's  mind  is  stored  with. 

I  hope  this  will  not  be  just  a  mood,  Ned.  Remember 
that  your  coming  into  her  life  means  more  to  her 
than  her  coming  into  yours  means  to  you.  Men  are 
like  railway  trains.  They  journey  through  miles  of 
squalid  towns  and  noisy,  smoky  tunnels — these  are 
their  business  affairs — and  emerge  for  a  moment  into 
the  sunlight,  with  glimpses  of  ragged  blue,  a  village 
among  trees,  thatched  roofs,  roses  and  golden-haired 
children — these  are  their  love  affairs.  And  then  they 
plunge  once  more  among  factory  chimneys  and  gloom 
and  dirt,  emerging  once  again  into  the  sunlight.  But 
this  time  it  is  the  sunlight  of  a  different  valley.  The 
journey  is  gay  for  them,  but  the  villages  feel  being  left 
behind.  Remember  that  when  you  leave  your  love 
the  room  grows  cold  and  lonely.  This  is  really  non- 
sense. The  room  has  its  chairs  and  tables;  it  is  she 
who  is  lonelv. 


RESPONSIBILITY  171 

Don't  think  me  flippant.  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  help 
you  and  more,  only  you  mustn't  ask  me  to  take  you 
too  seriously.  You  yourself  are  fond  of  preaching 
that  there  are  a  thousand  ways  of  taking  life  and  only 
one  wrong  way,  and  that  the  serious  one.  I  simply 
can't  be  serious  on  a  fine  day  in  Borrowdale.  The  Lakes 
always  make  me  feel  that  a  star  danced  for  me  as 
well  as  for  Beatrice.  I  have  been  out  on  Cat  Bells 
all  the  afternoon  with  Geoffrey  and  a  Shakespeare. 
Geoffrey  had  his  ferrets  and  I  spent  the  afternoon 
dangling  a  dead  rabbit  outside  a  hole  that  one  of  the 
nasty  things  had  got  lost  in.  So  I  whiled  away  the  time 
with  Measure  for  Measure  till  I  got  bored  with  Isabella, 
and  then  read  bits  of  Much  Ado.  Hence  the  elegance 
of  these  presents. 

I  have  no  news  except  that  Dorothy  Greenhill,  whom 
you  have  never  met,  is  to  be  married  on  Thursday  next 
to  someone  you  have  never  seen,  in  a  coat  and  skirt  and 
other  trivialities. 

All  sunshine,  comfort  and  peace  to  you,  and  a  kiss 
to  be  bestowed  as  you  shall  think  fit. 

Monica. 

My  thoughts  on  reading  this  were  that  of  all  pos- 
sible cousins  Monica  was  the  toppingest.  I  forget  what 
word  it  was  that  I  must  have  used.  It  is  all  so  long 
ago,  but  "toppingest"  gives  the  sense  of  it. 

One  day  about  this  time  Westrom  suggested  a  glass 
of  port  after  lunch — unusual  debauch  for  him — and 
said  he  supposed  they  could  get  on  without  him  at  the 
bank  for  an  odd  half-hour  or  so.  I  saw  that  he  wanted 
to  talk.  We  held  our  glasses  of  sixpenny  up  to  the 
light  and  appraised  the  colour  and  bouquet  of  the 
syrupy  stuff.      Then,   when  the  other  customers  had 


172  RESPONSIBILITY 

departed:  "Tell  me  about  it,"  be  commanded,  as  tbougb 
I  bad  still  been  bis  fag. 

So  I  told  bim. 

"Can  you  do  it?"  he  asked.     "To  bo  quite  candid,  I 
don't  know  whether  you've  the  grit." 

I  sketched  a  protesl  which  he  waved  i 

"Ob,  I  know  you've  a  year  or  twi  re  of  fine 

impulse.  Now  you  are  thoroughly  and  terribly  in  earn- 
est. Now  you  are  transfigured  and  translated  and 
you  moan  it  beautifully,  every  bit.  But  it  is  a  very 
big  ventura      Remember   thai   you    d  11    alone. 

You  can't  come  down  from  idealising  to  a  mean  per- 
formance without  hurting  the  little  thing." 

"But  I'm  not  going  to  hurt  her,"  I  interrupted. 

"My  dear  chap,  of  course  yon  are  not  going  to  hurt 
her  now.     But  the  beginning  ry;  all  plunges,  all 

exaltations  are  easy.  We  won't  talk  of  failure;  the 
middling  success  would  be  bad  enough.  Pve  nol  much 
lilrfng  for  compromise.     B  <u  fellowship  to  fall 

back  upon  :" 

I  thought  we  had. 

"For,  yon  know,  to  abandon  f<         ihip  because  die 
edge    is   off   the   romance   La   alt  gether   unforgivable, 
and  the  edge  is  off  before  you  know  where  you  i 
It  isn't  any  good  fretting  and  filing  the  onivi 
witness  that  you've  done  nothing  to  d<        ■•  it,     [tfi 
the  price,  you  know." 

We  were  both  silent  for  a  few  momenta     Even  tl 
^1  had  an  inkling  that  I  was  only  playing  with  .V 
Ono  may  play  at  love  and  do  harm,  and  yet  without 
bad    intent      I  am  glad  to  think   that    I   did  DO  harm. 

'•Then   it  puts  a  definite  end    I  irk 

went  on.     "That  you  may  t.  n't  mean 

that,  you  are  at  liberty  to  go  on  tasting  it   in  different 


RESPONSIBILITY  173 

directions.  You've  chosen  your  life  partner  and  must 
6tick  to  her.  Now  can  you  ?  I  don't  want  to  be  dis- 
couraging, but  there's  her  education  and  upbringing 
and  traditions  to  think  of.  Will  she  suffice  you,  say 
in  ten  years?  Will  your  superiority  content  her? 
It's  a  fine  thing  you  are  attempting,  and  you  alono 
know  whether  yen  can  carry  it  through.  You  can  try 
to  deceive  yourself  or  you  can  be  honest  with  yourself. 
If  you  have  any  doubt  at  all,  Letter  he  humble  and 
turn  back.  Who  is  it  talks  about  'the  habit  of  middling 
actions  which  men  call  common-sense'?  Of  course 
there's  rials  in  any  great  adventure,  but  remember  that 
responsibility  doesn't  end   with   failure.     Forgive  me." 

I  remained  silent. 

"You'll  find  it  tremendously  jolly  and  exciting  in 
the  beginning,"  he  went  on  more  lightly.  "I've  been 
through  it.  You'll  have  carpets  and  tire-irons  to  choose; 
it's  Tim  end  of  a   lark,    1  can  tell  VOU." 

Tho  matter-of-fact  "fire-irons"  fell  on  my  conscious- 
ness like  a  knell.  T  knew  then  that  marriage  was  not 
within  tho  zone  of  the  possibilities,  that  I  had  never 
contemplated  it. 

I  had  little  sleep  that  night  and  for  many  nights.  In 
addition  to  tho  worry  <>f  Amy's  illness  I  began  to  have 
doubts  about  the  fairness  of  my  lack  of  serious  inten- 
tion and  the  ugliest  certainty  as  to  my  uncle'a  disposi- 
tions in  the  matter  of  her  father.  The  child  was  once 
more  out  of  danger  when,  one  evening,  Kester  unbur- 
dened himself  to  me.  I  will  condense.  The  story  was 
that  a  year  or  two  previously  he  had  borrowed  a  couple 
of  thousand  pounds  from  Ackroyd  and  ^Tarston  under 
agreement  to  sell  all  his  cloth  through  them.  That  tho 
instalments  by  which  he  was  to  repay  were  considerably 
in  arrear,  that  the  prices  offered  and  enforced  by  my 


174  RESPONSIBILITY 

uncle  had  for  a  long  time  been  little  short  of  disastrous, 
and  that  his  spinners  had  declined  to  furnish  him  with 
more  yarn  or  the  bank  with  any  further  facilities.  On 
the  previous  Friday  he  had  had  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  getting  the  money  together  to  pay  his  workpeople, 
whilst  he  foresaw  that  on  the  Friday  to  come  it  would 
be  absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  pay  out.  Black  ruin 
staring  him  in  the  face,  he  had  gone  down  to  Manchester 
to  see  my  uncle. 

Kester  sat  gazing  into  the  fire  and  I  thought  of 
all  the  stories  I  had  ever  read  of  fallen  greatness. 
However  small  the  height,  the  fall  and  the  tragedy 
are  there. 

I  gathered  that  he  had  been  received  with  infinite 
affability.  Reuben  had  made  him  a  proposal  which 
was  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  he  should  take  over 
all  Kester's  looms  and  plant  and  stocks  of  cotton  and 
cloth  on  the  one  hand  and  his  debts  on  the  other.  There 
was  also  an  offer  to  install  him  as  manager  at  what  was 
to  become  Ackroyd  and  Marston's  new  mill,  at  a  salary 
of  fifty  shillings  a  week  with,  for  his  family's  Bake,  a 
sum  of  three  hundred  pounds  down.  My  uncle  had 
given  him  two  days  in  which  to  accept,  and  Kester's 
arms  were  already  pleach'd,  his  neck  corrigible,  his 
head  bowed.  Kit  had  never  Icen  a  fighter.  There  was 
little  in  the  scene  to  record,  no  grand  disillusion,  no 
wild-ey'd  despair,  no  clutching  at  the  breast,  no  broken 
enunciation  of  the  petition  for  bread. 

A  simple  silence,  Kester  gazing  at  the  lire. 

And  then  his  wife,  who  during  the  recital  had  sat  by 
her  husband's  elbow,  her  mouth  pursed,  her  whole  being 
taut,  put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Thou  wert  alius  a  fool,  Kit,  a  big  soft-hearted  fool, 
but  we  shanna  starve.     Doan't  thee  take  it  to  heart, 


RESPONSIBILITY  175 

lad.  I've  worked  before  and  I'se  work  again.  We're 
sure  of  three  hundred  pound  and  the  children  can  fend 
for  themselves,  thank  God  !  What  does  it  matter  whether 
we've  fifty  shillings  a  week  or  five  hundred  so  long 
as  my  man  can  sleep  ?"    And  she  patted  him. 

Kester  showed  no  signs  of  rising  to  the  eloquence  of 
the  broken  bankrupt ;  or  perhaps  it  was  that  his  recital 
had  exhausted  him.  He  exhibited  a  singular  detach- 
ment. 

"I  was  born  a  working  man  and  I'se  die  one,"  he 
said.     "There's  worse,"  he  added  after  a  pause. 

As  may  be  imagined,  I  was  feeling  extremely  un- 
comfortable. How  much  of  an  uncle's  treachery  may 
not  run  in  one's  own  blood  ? 

"I'll  talk  to  Mr  Reuben,"  I  said,  though  I  must 
confess  with  but  a  poor  stomach  behind  the  words. 

"You'll  waste  your  breath,  I'm  thinking,  Mr  Ned. 
He's  a  hard,  crooked  man  and  I  took  him  for  straight." 

And  never  again  did  I  hear  either  of  the  honest  pair 
open  their  lips  on  the  subject  of  the  rich  Manchester 
merchant  who  had  betrayed  them. 

I  was  as  good  as  my  word  and  went  down  to  Man- 
chester next  day  with  the  express  purpose  of  persuading 
my  uncle  to  modify  the  harshness  of  his  terms.  But 
my  tackling  of  Reuben  was  about  as  effective  as  an  at- 
tempt by  a  Parliamentary  novice  to  man-handle  Mr 
Gladstone.  Now  that  I  come  to  think  of  it,  my  pre- 
sentation of  Kester's  case  consisted  largely  in  a  charge 
against  Reuben  of  lying,  treachery  and  commercial  dis- 
honesty. My  uncle  heard  me  out  with  perfect  patience, 
then  lit  a  cigar,  and  leaning  back  in  his  chair  launched 
forth  into  what  sounded  like  a  public  address : 

"I  am  afraid,  my  dear  nephew,"  he  began,  "that 
you  do  not  quite  grasp  the  principles  involved  in  those 


176  RESPONSIBILITY 

two  great  factors  of  commercial  life,  supply  and  de- 
mand, and  which  necessarily  underlie  the  business  of 
buying  and  selling.  I  have  for  several  years  under- 
taken to  provide  Christopher  Dewhurst  with  an  un- 
interrupted succession  of  orders  at  prices  which  should 
be  approved  by  him  and  which  I  am  therefore  bound  to 
presume  to  be  acceptable  to  him.  This  although  I  may 
not  have  had  a  single  yard  of  orders  for  his  cloth  on  my 
books.  The  obligation  justified  me  in  placing  my  orders 
at  the  time  I  judged  most  suitable  and  at  the  lowest 
prices  which  I  could  persuade  him  to  accept.  I  stood 
to  be  shot  at.  I  might  have  lost ;  I  may  have  gained. 
You  seem  to  forget  that  I  am  in  business,  that  I  and 
my  partner" — here  he  looked  at  Geoffrey — "are  in 
business  with  the  primary  object  of  making  money  and 
not  of  preventing  your  friends  from  losing  it." 

"Edward  seems  to  think  'Successors  to  Don  Quixote 
and  Company'  should  be  our  style,"  put  in  Geoffrey, 
with  an  insane  giggle. 

"I  think,  too,"  continued  my  uncle,  "that  you  are 
blinded  by,  shall  I  say,  an  irrelevant  interest.  And 
now  that  this  little  matter  has  been  touched  upon,  may 
I  ask  what  are  your  intentions  with  regard  to  Miss 
Amy?" 

I  was  considerably  taken  aback.  Nevertheless  I 
answered  boldly: 

"I'm  very  fond  of  her." 

"So,  probably,  is  her  father.  So,  too,  should  I 
probably  be,  were  I  honoured  with  her  acquaintance. 
But  I  am  not  content  with  the  general  statement. 
My  duty  as  your  guardian  demands  that  I  should  ask 
you  whether  this  young  woman  is  your  mistress." 

"Certainly  not,"  I  replied,  unable  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment  to  find  more  burning  words  of  refutation. 


RESPONSIBILITY  177 

I  was  horribly  ashamed,  not  for  myself  but  for 
Reuben. 

"Are  you  engaged  to  marry  her  ?" 

"Not  yet." 

"Is  it  your  intention  to  marry  her  ?" 

I  did  not  answer. 

"Marriage,  though  foolish,  I  can  understand,  and  an 
illicit  relation  I  can  conceive.  But  I  will  not  have  any 
shilly-shallying.  The  day  you  lead  this  young  woman 
into  harlotry" — Keuben's  anger  was  of  the  patriarchal 
turn — "sees  the  end  of  your  connection  with  Ackroyd's. 
Do  you  understand,  boy  ?" 

I  remained  mute. 

"And  let  me  have  no  further  nonsense  either  about 
my  business  or  your  women.  Dewhurst  will  accept  my 
terms;  he  licks  my  hand  already.  I  have  given  him 
three  hundred  pounds  to  cover  his  decency;  otherwise 
he  hasn't  a  rag.  Anybody  else  would  have  stripped  him 
to  the  bone.  I  give  you  until  to-morrow  morning  to 
decide  between  Dewhurst  and  me,  between  his  family 
and  mine,  and  I  give  you  fair  warning  that  if  you  decide 
for  Dewhurst  you  and  he  and  his  brat  may  go  to  the 
devil  together." 

I  prefer  not  to  linger.  Three  summers  later  Amy 
married  a  young  traveller  in  healds  and  reeds  who  had 
once  been  wont  to  kick  little  girls  on  the  shins.  Life  is 
like  that.  For  some  years  Christmas  time  brought  with 
it  the  best  wishes  of  Mr  and  Mrs  Joe  Blackley.  And 
then  the  cards  ceased  and  I  do  not  in  the  least  know 
what  has  become  of  my  old  friends.  I  heard  in  a 
roundabout  way  that  the  brother  went  to  Australia  and 
that  Leonora  drifted  to  the  stage.  The  parents  have 
long  been  dead. 


CHAPTER  IV 


ENGLAND  in  the  middle  nineties! 
I  have  often  been  struck  with  the  immunity 
from  time  and  environment  with  which  novel- 
ists endow  their  characters.  I  do  not  mean  that  Dickens 
failed  to  convey  Mr  Pickwick  about  in  stage-coaches 
and  Miss  Bolo  in  sedan-chairs,  or  that  Mr  Wells  is  not 
very  proud  of  his  latest  aeroplane.  These  are  the  ex- 
ceptions. Your  average  novelist  will  record  the  minut- 
est development  in  his  hero's  sentimental  dispositions 
and  none  at  all  in  the  growth  of  the  world  about  him. 
Life  is  short,  but  its  grasp  is  immense,  and  there  are 
surely  other  phenomena  to  mark  a  man's  passage  be- 
sides the  number  of  his  intrigues  and  the  fluctuations 
of  his  bank  balance.  I  hold  myself  to  be  a  youngish  man 
still,  and  yet  can  recall  the  time  when  electric  light, 
the  telephone  and  the  postal  order  were  not.  I  remem- 
ber the  childish  opposition  which  these  new-fangled  no- 
tions encountered  on  the  part  of  the  gas  companies, 
the  Postmaster-General  and  the  Manchester  Chamber 
of  Commerce.  The  gas  companies  saw  their  light  ex- 
tinguished for  ever  by  their  more  brilliant  and  con- 
venient sister.  The  Postmaster-General  saw  in  the 
telephone  a  dangerous  competitor  to  his  beloved  tele- 
graph system.  The  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce 
saw  in  the  increased  facilities  for  payment  by  post  a 
diminution  in  the  profits  of  the  cheque  bank.  There 
does  not  seem  to  have  existed  at  this  date,  even  in  the 

178 


RESPONSIBILITY  179 

minds  of  the  most  intelligent,  the  shadow  of  an  idea 
of  communal  interest.  Jealousy  of  the  improving  print- 
ing press,  animosity  of  the  hand-loom  weaver  towards 
his  more  mechanical  brother,  hostility  of  the  Church  to- 
wards Science,  that  lady's  jealousy  of  Philosophy,  all 
make  up  a  catalogue  to  prove  that  the  dearest  enmity  of 
man  is  reserved  for  him  who  seeks  to  make  two  grains 
of  knowledge  sprout  in  the  time  of  one.  The  novelist 
who  should  endow  his  hero  with  the  base  attitude  of  in- 
creasing resentment  would  but  copy  life,  instead  of 
which  he  is  content  to  represent  him  as  untouched  by 
the  march  of  events.  I  hesitate  to  believe  that  the  fash- 
ion of  a  man's  mind  changes  less  than  the  cut  of  his 
clothes. 

Where  were  we  then  in  '94? 

The  year  1894  was  woefully,  though  as  a  commencing 
fogy  I  am  inclined  to  think  fascinatingly,  behind  the 
times.  The  Poles,  North  and  South,  had  still  a  few 
lustres  of  virginity  before  them  and  the  Regalia  of  St 
Patrick  at  Dublin  Castle  thirteen  more  years  of  non- 
molestation.  Civilisation  had  four  years  to  wait  for 
the  Jameson  raid;  Omdurman  was  not  yet;  and  the 
Mahdi's  head  had  not  become  a  bee  in  childish  bonnets. 
The  world  was  not  clamouring  for  its  news  at  a  half- 
penny; it  had  not  occurred  to  private  citizens  to  parade 
the  streets  shrieking  that  they  wanted  eight  and 
wouldn't  wait;  it  was  feasible  to  grow  sweet  peas  in  a 
non-competitive  spirit  and  to  eat  in  quietude  the  bread 
of  one's  fancy.  It  was  possible  to  enter  a  music  hall 
at  half-past  eight  and  not  be  ejected  at  nine;  famous 
French  actresses  had  not  contemplated  appearance  be- 
tween performing  fowl  and  smirking,  scented  contor- 
tionists. Music  halls  had  not  arrived  at  the  ridiculous 
pretence  of  providing  shows  for  the  young  miss  and 


180  RESPONSIBILITY 

moralists  did  not  go  about  asking  whether  if  writers 
had  been  better  men  they  would  have  written  better 
books.  The  country-side  smelt  of  hawthorn  and  of 
honeysuckle,  and  the  stink  of  petrol  was  held  an  abomi- 
nation. The  handling  of  reins  could  still  be  counted 
among  the  pleasures  of  life,  and  for  two  luxurious  years 
the  speed  of  motor  cars  was  to  be  regulated  by  a  man 
carrying;  a  fla£.  The  race-horse  Ladas  had  won  the 
Derby  for  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  a  foal  was  now  be- 
ing  dropped  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  type  of 
human  to  whom  that  which  is  permissible  in  an  heir 
apparent  is  deplorable  in  a  Prime  Minister.  "W.  G. 
Grace  had  not  more  than  a  paltry  ty   or  ninety 

centuries  to  his  credit,  the  Indian  prince  had  not  taken 
up  his  studies  at  Cambridge,  and  the  professional  bats- 
man after  achieving  his  two  or  three  hundred  runs  still 
slunk  off  the  field  by  a  humbler  exit  than  that  which 
received  the  contribution-less  amateur.  The  jolly  and 
tuneful  Geisha,  The  Belle  of  New  York,  Florodnra  and 
San  Toy  were  as  yet  unborn.  So  too  were  Trilby  and 
Mr  Pig-Pig!  whilst  the  womb  of  time  -till  held  in  re- 
serve faith  in  Mr  Bernard  Shaw's  play-  as  a  commer- 
cial speculation. 

The  years  immediately  preceding  *94  had  seen  the 
Maybrick  trial  and  tl  carat  scandal,  the  death  of 

Tennyson  and  General  Booth's  contention  that  darkest 
England  was  altogether  gloomier  and  dingier  than 
darkest  Africa. 

The  year  itself  saw  Mr  Gladstone  in  power  and  draw- 
ing distinctions  so  subtle  that  no  one  else  could  perceive 
them,  which  is  perhaps  not  quite  the  same  thing  n>  say- 
ing one  thing  and  meaning  another.  To  the  fact  of  his 
premiership  I  attach  little  importance,  so  long  have  I 
been  accustomed  to  hold  it  immaterial  whether  we  be 


RESPONSIBILITY  181 

governed  by  any  particular  set  of  party  politicians  or 
by  the  elephant  Jumbo.     The  famous  Death  Duties  and 
the  Two  Power  Standard  were  under  discussion  and 
the  country  was  still  basking  in  the  sun  or  languishing 
in  the  night  of  Free  Trade.     Whichever  view  be  held, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  country  was  in  for  an  era  of 
unexampled    prosperity.      Queen    Victoria    and    Lord 
Kandolph  Churchill  were  waning  forces ;  Robert  Louia 
Stevenson  was  dying.    The  cotton  trade  had  just  arrived 
at  the  famous  Brooklands  agreement,  that  agreement 
which  provides  that  changes  of  rate  of  wages  to  cotton 
operatives  should  not  take  place  oftener  than  once  a 
year,  and  that  no  single  change  should  exceed  five  per 
cent,  of  the  wage.  It  goes  without  saying  that  this  simple 
and  immoral  treaty  has  been  of  more  value  to  the  cotton 
employer  than  all  the  law-mongering  since  the  time  of 
Noah.  Mr  Barrie's  Auld  Licht  Idylls  and  Mr  Ian  Mac- 
laren's  Beside  the  Bonnie  Brier  Bush  had  left  the  coun- 
try not  even  its  eyes  to  weep  with,  and  Miss  Marie 
Corelli  was  at  the  height  of  her  fame.     Henry  Irving 
was  busy  proving  that  greatness  in  the  actor  may  make 
the  tawdriest  material  acceptable;  Ellen  Terry  throw- 
ing herself  away  as  ever  upon  clowning  Nance  Oldfields 
when  all  the  world  was  on  fire  for  Beatrice,  Viola,  Imo- 
gen.   But  not  even  that  dateless  and  imperishable  beauty 
which  was  hers  gives  the  particular  note  of  '94.     That 
note  was  struck  by  the  aesthetes  then  at  the  height  of 
their  delightful  folly.     The  world  was  one  yellow  page- 
ant or  peril,  as  you  will — I  am  not  a  policeman.     Yel- 
low asters  vied  with  green  carnations;   Dodo,   Paula 
Tanqueray  and  Esther  Waters  jostled  each  other  for  the 
greatest  shares  of  attention.     There  were  amusing  con- 
trasts between  new  and  old  schools.     At  one  theatre 
could  be  heard  the  old-fashioned  "Last  time,  Clemmy 


182  RESPONSIBILITY 

my  boy,"  of  Mr  Edward  Terry ;  over  the  way  Mrs  Pat- 
rick Campbell  would  be  demonstrating  how  evenings  at 
country  houses  inevitably  lead  to  suicide.  In  the 
provinces  a  sporting  actress  on  being  asked  what  she 
hoped  to  find  among  the  villain's  papers  could  be  heard 
to  reply:  "The  winner  of  the  Manchester  Cup."  And 
the  Manchester  gallery  to  applaud  with  hands  and  feet. 
On  the  lighter  stage  little  ladies  with  knickers  artlessly 
turned  up  babbled  of  Alabama  coons.  In  purely  mas- 
culine circles  golf  had  not  yet  become  popular,  and  the 
middle-aged  roue  sought  amusement  in  flirting  between 
the  sets  of  a  game  of  pat-ball  filched  from  royal  tennis. 
In  more  serious  matters  Herbert  Spencer  was  nearing 
the  last  pages  of  his  Synthetic  Philosophy,  and  the 
young  bloods  complained  that  the  champagne  of  '84  was 
still  a  trifle  new. 

§ii 

But  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  slow-going,  pur- 
poseful provincial  reacts  to  his  time  in  the  same  degree 
as  his  sparrow-like,  metropolitan  brother.  I  take  Wally 
Buckley  as  the  type  of  coming-on  industrial.  Old  Ab- 
salom may  have  known  little  about  the  elegancies  of 
life,  but  at  least  he  was  frank,  sturdy  and  staunch.  His 
son  inherited  none  of  his  father's  quality.  To  while 
away  such  time  as  he  had  to  wait  for  his  inheritance, 
he  ''followed"  drink.  The  phrase,  in  the  mouths  of 
its  Crawley-Bridge  users,  does  not  amount  to  a  re- 
proach ;  it  is  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  as  who  should 
say  a  taste  for  whippets.  That  I  consider  "Wally  as 
typical  of  much  of  the  youth  of  Lancashire  of  my  day 
is  not  a  reproach  except  in  the  sense  that  a  plain  state- 
ment may  be  a  reproach. 

Absurd  then  to  attempt  to  describe  the  Lancashire 


RESPONSIBILITY  183 

year  in  terms  of  the  Yellow  Book  and  Beardsley,  Paula 
Tanqueray  and  Wilde.    In  Manchester  itself  there  was 
a  skin-deep  pretence  of  moving  with  the  times.    Oh,  but 
reluctantly  and  with  what  infinities  of  protest.     The 
Limpkin's  attitude  to  Paula  may  be  taken  as  typical. 
"Unnecessary"  was  her  adjective  for  the  play,  but  then 
I've  heard  her  use  that  word  to  describe  the  kiss  of 
Judas.     Many  a  tea-table  did  one  set  by  the  ears  in  ob- 
jecting that  the  lover's  old  relations  with  Paula  con- 
stitute no  bar  to  marriage  with  her  step-daughter,  ex- 
cept within  the  walls  of  a  theatre.    An  advance  in  Vic- 
torian play-writing  certainly,  in  the  sense  that  a  change 
from  nakedness  to  woad  is  an  advance.     But  it  were 
fantastic  to  use  the  theatre  as  a  measure  of  progress  in 
Crawley  Bridge.     One  gauge  there  was,  and  one  only. 
Trams!    In  '94  the  miserable  single  horse  had  already 
given  place  to  the  more  dashing  and  encouraging  pair, 
which,  it  was  even  beginning  to  be  seen,  might  with 
equal  convenience  be  attached  to  either  end  of  the  tram 
and  so  save  the  holding  up  of  the  traffic  necessitated 
by  the  turning  round  of  the  whole  encumbrance.     The 
directorate  of  the  private  company  to  which  the  vehicles 
belonged  appeared  to  spend  most  of  its  time  in  devising 
means  for  detecting  dishonesty  in  its  employees. — they 
had   the  prettiest  collection   imaginable  of  man-  and 
booby-traps,  bags,  boxes,  tickets  punchable  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  passenger,  perforable  to  the  tinkle  of  little 
bells — whereas  on  any  question  of  improved  comfort 
they  were  adamant.    Street-lighting  remaining  constant, 
the  passing  of  time  was  unrecorded  at  Crawley  save  in 
the  matter  of  its  traction. 

Morality  was  in  those  days  and  in  that  tiny  corner  of 
the  world  an  amazing,  rigid  jumble.  It  consisted,  if 
you  belonged  to  the  upper  classes,  in  not  riding  on  the 


184  RESPONSIBILITY 

tops  of  the  said  trains,  in  not  smoking  pipes  in  the 
street,  in  not  playing  games  on  Sundays,  in  not  fre- 
quenting race-meetings,  in  having  no  intercourse  with 
the  lower  orders.  It  consisted,  if  you  belonged  to  these 
lower,  in  having  nothing  to  do  on  Sunday  evenings,  in 
going  nowhere,  in  hanging  about  the  streets  dejectedly 
spitting.  In  foulness.  To  people  of  my  uncle's  class 
it  consisted  in  knowing  who  were  the  other  really  nice 
people,  in  recognising  the  proper  class  to  travel  by  and 
the  right  seats  to  occupy  at  the  theatre.  Reuben  held 
that  sellers  of  cloth  should  leave  to  buyers  the  first-class 
railway  carriage  and  the  more  expensive  stalls,  con- 
tenting themselves  also  with  the  return  rather  than  the 
inauguration  of  salutes.  To  travel  in  any  conveyance 
which  was  not  closed  and  on  four  wheels  was  improper, 
to  take  in  a  London  newspaper  an  aberration  amount- 
ing to  a  vice.  Morality  at  Crawley  Bridge — and  I  have 
noticed  the  same  thing  in  other  parts  of  the  world — was 
a  matter  of  what  you  might  not  do,  never  of  what  you 
should;  an  affair  of  repression  rather  than  expansion. 
It  was  perfectly  moral  for  instance,  for  the  large  mill- 
owner  tacitly  to  condone  a  system  of  sanitary  conven- 
iences for  his  work-people  little  better  than  those  of  a 
Russian  prison.  Whereas  openly  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion of  sanitation  was  in  the  worst  possible  taste. 

It  was  largely  to  combat  this  state  of  things  that  a 
few  of  the  more  hopeful  among  us  formed  ourselves  into 
a  society  of  chosen  spirits.  The  members  were  not 
many.  They  consisted  of  the  shop  assistant  Claud 
Rodd,  Strumbach's  shy  young  man,  Arthur  Ransom, 
whose  soul  died  every  morning  when  he  entered  the 
warehouse  at  nine  and  came  to  life  again  at  the  six 
o'clock  hour  of  release,  Westrom,  Curt  Reinecke,  Reg- 
gie Bissett  and  myself. 


RESPONSIBILITY  185 

It  occurs  to  me  here  that  I  have  attempted  little  de- 
scription of  the  physical  attributes  of  the  more  amiable 
personages  of  my  tale.  And  that  principally  because 
mere  physical  good  looks  are  as  little  interesting  as  the 
morality  which  consists  in  avoidance.  Both  Westrom 
and  Reinecke  were,  Heaven  be  thanked,  as  ugly  as  sin. 
There  was  a  cut  about  Westrom  which  always  moved  me 
to  the  grotesque  in  point  of  comparison.  Great  Gable, 
I  used  to  think,  remembering  that  he  was  born  within 
a  morning's  walk  of  that  tremendous  pile  and  in  view 
of  his  large  nose,  square  jaw  and  granite  pugnacity.  A 
hint,  too,  of  frowning  perplexity.  His  mind  was  craggy 
and  spacious  and  one  felt  that  contrariwise  to  Charles 
Lamb  he  would  have  given  all  the  pits  of  all  the  world's 
theatres  for  a  sight  of  Great  End.  Or  he  could  be 
secluded  and  cloistral,  wrapping  his  mind  about  with 
the  sombre  banners  of  some  monkish  faith.  He  had  a 
fine  sense  of  the  preposterous  in  manners  and  an  im- 
mense distaste  for  the  unusual  in  conduct.  With  the 
true  Liberal  genius  for  making  allowances  where  he 
had  no  sympathy  he  was  your  Good  Samaritan  turned 
Grand  Inquisitor;  a  merciful  judge,  capable  of  forgiv- 
ing a  criminal  everything  but  his  crime.  He  could  say 
surprising  things.  "I  like  goodness,"  I  once  heard  him 
declare.  "Even  the  Supreme  Cause  has  got  to  behave 
itself  or  it  doesn't  have  my  vote." 

Curt  Reinecke  had  much  of  Westrom's  ruggedness 
but  the  mould  was  gentlier.  He  was  a  Jew  from  Ham- 
burg, tall,  loose-limbed,  of  good  family.  He  was  em- 
ployed by  Strumbach  as  a  Volontar,  which  means  that 
he  devilled  for  that  amiable  giant  in  return  for  a  pound 
a  week  and  the  opportunity  of  learning  English  ways 
of  business.  It  was  his  intention  after  completing  his 
military   service  to   take   up   a   partnership   with   his 


186  RESPONSIBILITY 

wealthy  brothers  in  Hamburg,  probably  remaining  in 
Manchester  as  the  head  of  their  Manchester  branch. 
This  is  the  German  form  of  colonisation,  made  possible 
by  the  fact  that  the  young  German  will  live  on  less  and 
work  harder  than  the  young  Englishman.  There  is 
no  cure  for  what  is  really  an  insidious  form  of  conquest 
other  than  an  amendment  in  the  immigration  laws. 
But  this  is  tedious  and  matter  for  the  politician.  You 
could  have  ransacked  the  whole  of  the  German  Empire 
and  the  whole  of  the  United  Kingdom  without  finding 
a  more  agreeable  fellow  than  Reinecke.  He  radiated 
affability,  he  was  incandescent  with  good-humour,  he 
shone  with  a  humility  in  which  there  was  nothing  ser- 
vile. Add  to  this  a  charming  naivete,  a  passionate 
modesty  and  a  rapturous  enthusiasm  for  everything 
English  in  which  there  was  no  suspicion  of  toadyism, 
and  vou  have  the  man. 

Of  Reggie  Bissett  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  except 
that  he  had  an  admirable  taste  in  claret  and  a  passion 
for  what  he  would  call  a  "monstrously  well-prepared 
pheasant."  He  would  spend  hours  concocting  little 
notes  of  invitation  ending:  "As  I  am  no  orator,  both 
the  champagne  and  myself  propose  to  be  Mumm !"  His 
worst  fault  was  the  delivery  of  mountainous  common- 
places such  as  "It  is  extraordinary  how  much  trash  one 
can  read  if  one  gives  one's  mind  to  it."  Or  he  would 
impart  as  a  confidence  the  news  that  on  the  previous 
evening  he  had  considered  the  advisability  of  smoking 
a  second  cigar,  but  had  finally  abandoned  the  idea. 
And  yet  he  was  not  completely  null.  That  is  to  say,  his 
nullity  was  not  that  of  the  cretin,  was  not  Geoffrey's 
sort,  nor  yet  that  of  the  toss-pot,  Wally  Buckley.  He 
was  the  healthy,  cold-tubbing  Englishman  of  our  un- 
readable novelists.     He  had  a  passion  which  absorbed 


RESPONSIBILITY  187 

him  and  yet  of  which  he  seldom  spoke,  a  passion  for 
horses.  He  had  the  mind  of  the  perfect  stable-boy; 
he  was  his  horses.  I  have  known  him  spend  long  win- 
ter afternoons  tramping  desolate  fields  for  a  glimpse  of 
shaggy  brutes  herding  under  the  lee  of  stone  walls. 
Or  he  would  spend  hours  in  that  ecstasy  of  contempla- 
tion which  a  loose-box  affords,  in  mysterious  confab 
with  his  groom,  a  striped  and  chequered  notable.  Horses 
were  the  only  subject  on  which  Bissett  possessed  elo- 
quence, and  I  have  heard  him  improvise  over  a  mare 
of  courage  a  tirade  outrivalling  Charlotte  Bronte's  on 
the  genius  of  Rachel.  For  his  horses  he  would  have 
sacrificed  wife,  child,  fortune,  hope  of  the  world  to 
come.  You  will  tell  me  that  this  is  mania.  To  which 
I  reply  that  the  passion  which  is  less  than  mania  is  not 
passion  at  all.  Give  me  your  veritable  passion's  slave 
and  I  will  wear  him  in  my  heart  of  hearts. 

Bissett  was  welcomed  by  us  not  for  the  sake  of  his 
particular  mania  but  because  he  was  known  to  possess 
one.  He  was  as  rich  as  Westrom  was  respectable,  and 
our  little  society  found  both  qualities  a  convenient  pil- 
lar. We  used  to  meet  formally  once  a  month  and  in- 
formally once  a  week  in  a  little  cafe-restaurant  which 
boasted  a  back  room  to  be  dignified  at  a  pinch  with  the 
courtesy  title  of  cabvnet  particulier.  On  informal  oc- 
casions we  would  content  ourselves  with  chops  and  beer 
in  pint-pots;  at  the  grand  monthly  meetings  the  pro- 
prietor would  put  up  an  eight-course  dinner  for  seven 
shillings  and  sixpence,  and  we  would  consider  which 
of  the  Californian  Burgundies  might  most  fittingly  pre- 
cede the  pale,  dry,  creaming  Perrier-Jouet  which  ran 
away  with  our  weekly  pittances  at  the  rate  of  ten 
shillings  a  bottle.    Westrom  was  the  only  member  of  the 


188  RESPONSIBILITY 

band  to  whom  expense  mattered;  Bissett  was  too  rich 
and  the  rest  of  us  too  poor  to  care. 

It  was  de  rigueur  that  discussion  at  these  dinners 
should  be  reserved  for  matters  of  great  pith  and  mo- 
ment. 

\ 

o     •  •  • 

§  in 

"We  must  have  a  motto  and  we  must  have  a  pro- 
gramme," said  Ransom  at  our  second  meeting. 

"So  long  as  we  don't  propagate  anything  or  call  our- 
selves a  band  or  a  brotherhood,  I'm  agreeable,"  said 
Rodd.  "Why  not  a  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Self- 
satisfaction  among  the  Clergy  ?" 

"Why  not  'The  Philosophic  Epicures'  ?"  asked  Bis- 
sett. 

"Or  The  Reasonable  Men'  ?"  from  Curt. 

"I  don't  think  we  need  define  what  we  are  here  for," 
said  Westrom.  "All  definitions  are  forms  of  limita- 
tion.  'Do  the  good  that's  nearest,'  you  know." 

"A  sort  of  general  interference  with  the  best  of  mo- 
tives," replied  Rodd  querulously,  "helping  lame  dogs, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.    Not  for  me,  thank  you." 

"What  about  'The  New  Bohemians'  ?"  I  put  in. 

"None  of  the  old  ones  were  artists  in  our  sense,"  re- 
turned Rodd.  "Miirger  could  write  a  pretty  story,  but 
neither  he  nor  his  precious  painters  were  'serious.'  As 
far  as  I  can  make  out  they  cared  for  nothing  except 
wearing  absurd  trousers  and  silly  hats  and  throwing 
away  what  little  money  they  had  on  consumptive  dress- 
makers.   His  Latin  Quarter  is  a  colossal  blague/' 

"The  worst  of  serious  fellows  like  Claud,"  said  Wes- 
trom, patting  Rodd  affectionately  on  the  shoulder,  "is 
that  they  will  raise  the  moral  issue.     Now  there's  no 


RESPONSIBILITY  189 

moral  issue  about  a  Musette  and  a  Mimi.  The  thing's 
just  a  joke." 

"Well,  we're  not  jokes,"  Rodd  answered,  with  a  fine 
defiance.  "We're  going  to  be  great  men,  all  of  us. 
At  least  we  intend  to  try,"  he  tailed  off  more  humbly. 

"I  will  do  such  things,  what  they  are,  yet  I  know 
not;  but  they  shall  be  the  terrors  of  the  earth,"  re- 
torted Westrom. 

"Lear  was  an  old  man.  We  are  all  of  us  out  to  do 
something,  or  what's  our  youth  for  ?"  retorted  Claud. 
"There's  Ned  here  wants  to  write  books,  Ransom  thinks 
he  can  draw,  Curt  has  got  a  symphony  in  his  head  and 
I — well,  I've  a  notion  how  to  pull  things  to  pieces. 
That's  the  poorer  half  of  criticism,  but  it's  a  beginning. 
Building  up  comes  after.  You've  got  to  clear  the 
ground  first.  In  any  case  I  take  it  we're  here  to  work 
and  not  to  play  about  with  women." 

A  long  and  lively  debate  followed,  of  which  the 
upshot  was  that  we  were  to  call  ourselves  the  New  Bo- 
hemians. It  was  all  very  young  and  very  ardent  and 
perhaps  not  too  foolish.  It  was  determined  that  our 
society  should  be  governed  by  one  principle  and  one 
principle  only,  the  strict  intolerance  of  mental  dis- 
honesty either  among  ourselves  or  in  the  world  at  large. 
This  settled,  we  next  proceeded  to  cast  about  for  sub- 
jects most  worthy  of  the  strong  light  of  our  single- 
mindedness.  I  think  we  were  all  of  us  eaeer  to  co- 
quette  with  Socialism,  and  perhaps  we  thought  that  the 
arts  stood  in  need  of  a  leg-up.  / 

"But  we  can't  discuss  what  is  most  worth  doing  un- 
til we  know  what  the  whole  world's  for,"  said  Curt 
logically.  So  with  a  praiseworthy  idea  of  beginning  at 
the  beginning  we  decided  upon  an  inquiry  as  to  the 


190  RESPONSIBILITY 

latest  attitude  of  the  scientists  and  philosophers  to- 
wards the  origin  and  purpose  of  life. 

"We  don't  want  to  be  philosophers,"  said  Bissett. 
"But  we  may  as  well  know  what  philosophy  is  after 
and  where  she  stands." 

"In  other  words,  we  want  as  much  of  it  as  becomes 
persons  of  taste,"  said  Ransom. 

"I  propose,"  went  on  Bissett,  "that  each  of  us  takes 
a  philosophic  bloke  and  mugs  him  up.  We'll  all  re- 
port to  Reinecke,  who  will  pool  the  lot.  Put  me  down 
for  some  one  pretty  easy,  you  chaps."  And  we  allotted 
him  Samuel  Butler.  The  following  is  the  compendium 
of  philosophic  principle  to  which  the  society  was  for- 
mally to  subscribe : — 

There  is  no  evidence  that  anything  exists  which  is 
without  attributes.  Every  existing  thing  to  be  ma- 
terial and  resolvable  into  primary  energy  which  is  not, 
so  far  as  we  know,  resolvable  into  any  more  naked  sim- 
plicity. 

Nothing  has  ever  occurred  for  which  there  is  not  a 
natural  and  material  explanation,  although  we  may  not 
yet  be  advanced  enough  to  hit  upon  the  explanation. 

i 

The  universe  was  probably  created  by  the  lucky  or 
unlucky  assemblage  in  the  proper  place  and  at  the 
proper  time  of  forms  o^  energy  coming  together  in 
such  proportions  as  were  necessary  to  create  matter. 

The  Pirst  Cause  may  be  devoid  of  the  human  sense 
of  responsibility  and  may  be  unconscious  of  humanity. 
It  may  be  unaware  of  itself  and  entirely  devoid  of 
consciousness. 


RESPONSIBILITY  191 

There  is  no  evidence  that  the  emotions  and  im- 
pulses of  man — love,  hatred,  kindness,  self-sacrifice — 
are  other  than  the  reactions  of  matter. 

There  is  no  evidence  of  any  essential  difference  be- 
tween the  life  of  man  and  that  of  a  cabbage. 

Man  is  not  the  centre  of  the  universe  except  in  the 
sense  in  which  every  blade  of  grass  is  the  centre  of  the 
universe. 

Man  is  neither  higher  nor  lower  than  the  animals, 
only  more  complex. 

There  is  nothing  mysterious  about  life  except  our 
ignorance  of  it.  If  by  any  chance  all  those  material 
components  contained  in  the  body  of  man  were  to  be 
assembled  correctly  energised  in  the  correct  proportions 
and  under  the  correct  conditions,  then  human  life  would 
be  spontaneously  created. 

Nature  is  not  benevolent  but  natural,  and  she  makes 
no  mistakes  because  to  her  there  is  no  difference  between 
right  and  wrong.  To  Nature  disease  and  decay  are 
as  natural  as  health  and  growth.  The  ivy  hurts  the 
tree  but  does  itself  a  lot  of  good  in  the  process.  A 
thistle  is  the  result  of  Nature's  arrangements  for  a 
thistle  and  she  would  be  the  last  to  expect  to  gather 
figs  from  it. 

If  Nature  arranges  for  anything  it  will  happen;  if 
not,  not.  But  "arranges  for"  must  not  be  held  to  bear 
any  mystical  meaning. 


192  RESPONSIBILITY 

It  is  mistaken  philosophy  which  places  man  at  the 
centre  of  the  universe  and  discusses  all  that  happens 
therein  as  it  may  be  supposed  to  affect  the  present  and 
future  happiness  of  its  spoilt  child.  The  scientist  must 
confine  his  questionings  to  the  "why"  and  the  "how" 
and  not  bother  his  head  with  subliminal  "wherefores." 

It  is  permissible  to  conceive  a  gap  between  Primordial 
Energy  and  the  Prime  Cause  which  we  with  our  finite 
minds  are  bound  to  assume  to  be  behind  even  that 
Energy.  Within  that  gap  or  zone  of  the  incompre- 
hensible there  is  room  for  whatever  philosophic  specu- 
lation or  religious  faith  it  may  please  man  to  entertain. 
From  Primordial  Energy  downwards  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  Special  Interference. 

In  finite  matters  only  can  there  be  any  laying  down 
of  last  words. 

The  discovery  of  even  one  more  dimension  would 
throw  the  whole  of  modern  philosophy  out  of  gear. 
Man  to  be  prepared  to  accept  the  findings  of  only  such 
philosophy  as  makes  reservation  of  this  very  necessary 
pinch  of  salt. 

"Not  much  of  a  look-out!"  said  Bissett,  when  the 
bilan  was  formally  presented  and  accepted. 

"Of  course,"  said  I,  "all  that  this  means  is  that  the 
incomprehensible  cannot  exist  in  its  own  right,  and 
that  it  must  be  capable  of  being  comprehended  by  some- 
body or  it  would  not  exist." 

"Why  by  Somebody  ?"  asked  Curt.  "If  a  thing  is,  so 
it  is,  and  further  explanation  is  unnecessary.  Besides  I 
take  it  that  'Somebody'  must  not  exist.     There  may, 


RESPONSIBILITY  193 

there  must  be  Something  already,  but  that  isn't  neces- 
sarily Somebody.  To  present  the  First  Cause  with 
consciousness  is  to  give  to  it  Personality,  which  is  to 
pretend  to  knowledge  of  the  unknowable.  I  trust  hon- 
ourable members  will  pardon  any  rotten  German." 

"In  other  words,"  said  Ransom,  "what  is  called  the 
inscrutable  is  merely  evidence  of  lack  of  capacity  in  the 
scrutineers." 

"Exactly,"  Westrom  agreed.  "The  Church  has  al- 
ways made  the  mistake  of  postulating  the  universe  as  a 
kind  of  sublime  conjuring  trick." 

"Whereas" — it  was  Rodd  who  spoke — "we  are  to 
take  it  that  when  once  the  Prime  Cause  had  created 
Primordial  Energy  it  was  content  to  leave  it  at  that 
and  not  go  about  behind  Energy's  back  sending  a  flood 
when  it  could  not  possibly  have  rained  and  arresting 
the  movements  of  suns  to  please  some  toadying  savage. 
And  yet  I  suppose  that  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  for  an 
honest  philosopher  to  believe  in  God  and  a  future  life 
provided  he  does  not  insist  upon  other  people  accepting 
his  views  as  to  particular  numbers  and  arbitrary  forms 
of  dogma." 

"But,"  interposed  Ransom,  "the  moment  you  have 
evidence  for  faith  it  surely  ceases  to  be  faith  ?  Person- 
ally I  agree  with  Mark  that  while  we  are  here  we  may 
as  well  behave  ourselves.  You  can  invent  a  hundred 
extra  dimensions  as  you  call  them,  but  you  can't  upset 
that." 

"No  minister  or  clergyman  professing  anything  so 
simple  could  keep  his  berth  for  a  week,"  declared  Wes- 
trom. "It  is  quite  easy  to  understand  how  in  the  dark 
ages  the  priests  found  it  necessary  to  bamboozle  the 
people  for  their  own  benefit.  You  can't  expect  a  savage 
to  embrace  an  intellectual  conception  for  the  simple  rea- 


194  RESPONSIBILITY 

son  that  he  has  no  intellect  to  conceive  with ;  and  there- 
fore the  priests  had  to  invent  a  mystic  something  which 
the  simple  mind  could  hold  in  awe,  to  which  something 
they  tacked  on  a  very  useful  code  of  ethical  rule  to  suit 
the  moral,  physical  and  hygienic  needs  of  the  time. 
You  certainly  couldn't  expect  them  to  do  this  and  tip 
the  philosophers  the  wink." 

"There's  one  shred  of  hope,  surely,"  said  Ransom. 
"There  is  not  in  the  whole  of  nature,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  make  out,  any  general  craving  of  which 
fulfilment  is  totally  denied.  Plants  which  demand  the 
sun  would  not  have  been  created  in  the  absence  of  the 
sun.  Human  nature  cries  for  something  after  death, 
and  did  not  that  something  exist  I  doubt  whether  we 
should  have  been  tormented  by  a  useless  craving.  That 
animals  should  not  demand  a  future  existence — and  one 
presumes  they  don't — seems  to  me  an  excellent  reason 
why  they  should  not  have  one.  That  we  should  demand 
one  is  an  excellent  reason  why  we  should." 

"Rubbish !"  interjected  Rodd.  "Rubbish,  my  dear 
fellow.  Nature  is  made  up  of  cravings  which  are 
permanently  denied  and  of  which  the  satisfaction  would 
be  the  end  of  the  universe  as  we  know  it.  Unsatisfied 
desire  is  the  motive  of  all  life  and  of  all  change.  Every 
single  atom  is  in  a  continued  state  of  stress,  the  appease- 
ment of  which  would  lead  to  complete  equilibrium, 
which  in  its  turn  would  involve  the  cessation  of  all  life 
and  change.  If  the  universe  had  its  own  way.it  would 
rush  together  in  one  nasty,  indigestible,  coagulated 
lump.  As  for  the  desire  for  a  future  life,  why,  that's 
just  mental  fogginess.  There  is  no  doubt  that  there 
are  a  great  many  sentimental  people  who  find  that  a 
belief  in  a  second  existence  helps  to  make  the  present 
one  easier,  and  that  the  certainty  that  there  is  nothing 


RESPONSIBILITY  195 

to  follow,  that  tlie  whole  scheme  of  things  is,  from  a 
purely  human  standpoint,  purposeless  and  nonsensical, 
might  lead  to  race  suicide.  Taking  these  two  things 
together,  and  remembering  nature's  infinite  wiliness 
for  propagation,  you  begin  to  see  where  the  belief  in  a 
future  state  comes  from.  As  for  the  bitterness  of  death, 
it  seems  to  me  that  it  can  only  lie  in  the  persistence  af- 
ter death  of  the  desire  to  live — in  finding  the  tomb  a 
bore,  in  other  words.  Whereas  I  take  it  that  with  death 
the  desire  for  life  dies  too." 

"I  am  satisfied,"  began  Westrom,  "that  whatever 
there  may  be  afterwards  will  have  more  of  effort  in  it 
than  of  stagnation.  But  almost  as  soon  as  you  start 
arguing  you  come  up  against  the  blank  wall  of  trying 
to  comprehend  the  infinite  by  means  of  a  finite  intelli- 
gence. The  instrument's  not  good  enough,  that's  all. 
So  far  as  I  can  see  we've  the  choice  of  two  impossible 
conceptions.  Either  you  have  to  decide  for  a  First 
Cause  which  has  been  the  conscious  ordainer  of  every 
minute  and  stupendous  wonder  of  the  created  world,  in- 
cluding the  Coal  Sack  and  the  Milky  Way,  Rodd's  wit 
and  the  sole  of  a  fly's  foot,  or  for  some  form  of  Primi- 
tive Energy  which,  although  unconscious  itself  in  the 
human  sense,  has  evolved  so  great  a  miracle  as  human 
consciousness.  Which  seems  to  me  uncommonly  like 
the  whole  being  smaller  than  its  part." 

"Say  that  the  Original  Cause  was  less  complicated 
than  what  it  has  given  rise  to,  and  I'll  agree  with  you," 
proffered  Eodd. 

"Let  me  go  on  a  bit.  I  think  it's  a  waste  of  time  to 
argue  about  the  inconceivable.  All  we  know  for  cer- 
tain is  that  no  creature  wills  its  own  existence  and  that 
the  world's  creatures  are  continually  multiplying. 
Which  means  that  as  we  have  been  begotten  so  are  we  in 


196  RESPONSIBILITY 

duty  bound  not  to  waste  our  energies  unlawfully  but  to 
carry  on  nature's  purpose  and  the  world's  work  in  a 
legitimate,  honourable  way.  I'm  a  family  man  myself," 
he  concluded,  with  a  gleam  of  fun.  And  this  closed  the 
discussion. 

Two  other  subjects  there  were  which  intrigued  us 
greatly  and  which  we  found  to  he  very  largely  insep- 
arable.    I  mean  Socialism  and  the  Woman  Question. 

We  decided  that  all  men  are  not  equal  but  that  all 
have  rights  to  which  they  are  entitled  with  scrupulous 
equality.  The  right  to  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  ob- 
ligation. Every  man  to  give  to  the  world  his  work,  in 
return  for  which  he  is  entitled  to  be  adequately  housed 
and  nourished,  to  be  kept  in  health,  to  be  comforted 
and  cared  for  in  sickness,  to  be  protected  from  evil- 
doers. Hospitals  to  be  the  concern  of  the  State  as  much 
as  the  Army  and  the  Navy.  We  decided  that  it  was 
the  State's  duty  to  keep  people  from  drowning,  free, 
gratis  and  for  nothing,  and  to  protect  children  and  ani- 
mals from  cruelty.  Lifeboat  Saturdays  and  Societies 
for  the  Prevention  of  This,  That  and  the  Other  appeared 
to  us  to  be  reflections  upon  the  State.  If  it  be  desirable 
that  an  evil  be  restrained,  restraint  to  be  the  business 
of  the  State  and  not  of  private  enterprise.  We  held  it  to 
be  the  duty  of  the  community  to  keep  its  members  rea- 
sonably amused,  to  supply  them  with  drink  in  whole- 
some and  adequate  quantity,  to  teach  and  educate  them, 
to  convey  them  whithersoever  they  desire  to  go,  to  pro- 
vide them  with  opportunities  for  holiday-making  on  the 
largest  possible  scale,  the  whole  at  moderate  prices. 
We  held  the  provision  of  the  essentials  of  existence  at  a 
reasonable  charge  to  be  the  affair  of  the  commonwealth, 
the  embellishment  of  life  that  of  private  enterprise.  We 
contemplated  with  horror  illegitimacy  and  prostitution, 


RESPONSIBILITY  197 

and  with  pity  the  fate  of  the  children  and  the  women. 
I  think  we  were  entirely  free  from  heat  or  moral  in- 
dignation and,  I  hope,  from  priggishness.  "This  thing 
is  so;  what  is  the  country  to  do  about  it?"  seemed  to 
us  the  only  legitimate  question.  We  even  drew  up  an 
elaborate  scheme  of  toleration  which  did  not  include  the 
maison  toleree  but  which  did  provide  some  measure  of 
alleviation  and  an  asylum  against  the  too  wretched  end. 

Oh,  we  had  an  eye  on  practicability  and  safeguards. 
Westrom  had  expressed  a  fear  lest  we  should  be  en- 
couraging vice. 

"That's  the  old  parrot-cry,"  exclaimed  Rodd.  "Let's 
do  nothing  to  mitigate  the  consequences,  lest  we  be 
thought  to  encourage  the  evil.  You  might  just  as  well 
say  that  State  orphanages  are  an  inducement  to  parents 
to  commit  suicide." 

"What  I  am  principally  anxious  about,"  Westrom 
urged,  "is  that  wo  shouldn't  go  too  fast.  All  progress 
that  is  to  be  permanent  has  got  to  take  the  people  with 
it  and  must  necessarily  be  slow.  As  good  Socialists 
we  ought  to  want  the  people  to  make  their  own  laws. 
Consequently  all  law-giving  can  only  keep  pace  with 
what  the  people  want  and  want  so  badly  that  they 
insist  upon  it.  We  must  be  lenient  if  the  law  lags  be- 
hind a  little  so  as  to  be  on  the  safe  side." 

"Safe  side !"  cried  Rodd  bitterly.  "Oh,  God,  as  if  all 
failure  isn't  made  up  of  leaning  to  the  safe  side !  What 
are  we  all  here  except  safe-siders?  Look  at  Marston 
battening  on  his  uncle,  Ransom  licking  Strumbach's 
boots  when  he  ought  to  be  telling  the  old  man  to  go  to 
hell.  Look  at  me  selling  E  strings  and  Won't  you  Buy 
my  Pretty  Flowers,  and  'selecting'  tawdry  rubbish  for 
half-starved  music-teachers  because  I  haven't  got  the 
pluck  of  the  match-seller  and  the  cab-tout.     Because  I 


198  RESPONSIBILITY 

won't  turn  out  and  risk  it.  I  verily  think  those  seedy 
individuals  who  show  you  round  Port  Said  and  black- 
mail you  for  the  rest  of  your  life  are  worthier  of  re- 
spect than  I  am.  At  least  they  are  doing  the  best  that 
is  in  them  and  I  certainly  am  not  doing  the  best  that  is 
in  me." 

There  was  a  note  of  rhetoric  about  this  which  pre- 
vented it  from  being  really  moving,  though  later  events 
proved  there  was  more  of  sincerity  about  Rodd  than  we 
gave  him  credit  for  at  the  time.  Nobody  spoke  for 
a  few  moments  and  then  Westrom  again  took  up  the 
thread. 

"Under  the  old  individualist  regime  the  tip  was  to 
educate  the  men  at  the  top,  which  is  an  almost  im- 
possible feat.  They  come  down  from  the  Universities 
with  a  veneer  on  them.  I  prefer  to  call  it  a  crust.  It 
is  certainly  a  coating  which  lasts  their  time  and  which 
can  never  be  penetrated.  I  believe  the  only  thing  to 
do  is  to  educate  the  men  at  the  bottom.  Get  them  to 
want  and  to  insist  upon  good  laws  and  we'll  get  good 
laws  passed." 

"All  reasonable  Socialists,"  said  Curt,  standing  up 
and  blushing  very  red,  "would  not  talk  so  much  about 
their  so  rotten  laws.  They  would  choose  one  big  man 
and  say  to  him  'Govern  us.'  So.  I  am  only  any  rotten 
German  but  we  Germans  have  progressed  in  spite  of 
our  Socialists.  Strumbach  is  not  a  wicked  man,  but  he 
is  a  very  powerful  one.  You  say  Might  is  not  Right.  I 
say  he  is,  and  that  Right  is  a  fool  if  he  does  not  get 
Might  on  his  side  also.  So  long  as  your  Socialist  wants 
his  country  to  be  weaker  than  any  other  country,  so 
long  does  the  boot  go  on  his  neck.  That  country  will  be 
greatest  in  Europe  which  is  all  socialist  inside  but 
which  wants  to  be  the  greatest  outside  also.    You  have 


RESPONSIBILITY  199 

too  many  Liberals  in  England  and  not  enough  Socialists. 
This  is  perhaps  not  English  sense  I  am  talking,  but  it 
is  certainly  German  sense.  I  trust  honourable  members 
will  excuse  my  so  rotten  speech." 

Ho  clicked  his  heels  and  sat  down.  We  applauded 
and  drank  his  health  boisterously. 

In  the  matter  of  sex  we  looked  very  largely  to  Wes- 
trom,  who  was  married,  and  to  Rodd,  who  had  come 
across  it  in  Balzac;  the  experiences  of  the  rest  of  us 
having  been,  I  suppose,  largely  of  the  furtive  order. 
Claud  was  full  of  theories  about  the  peril  and  the 
glamour  of  the  woman  of  thirty. 

"In  other  words,"  remarked  Westrom,  "you  want 
a  brave  excuse  for  abandoning  a  woman  as  soon  as  you 
are  tired  of  her.  I  admit  it  must  be  tremendous  fun  to 
be  a  rake;  but  I  haven't  any  doubt  that  marriage  with 
companionship  and  children  is  finer.  I  submit  that  the 
pursuit  of  women  is  not  good  enough  if  it  is  to  be  a 
lark  and  no  more;  tolerable  only  on  condition  that  the 
women  can  be  hurt.  I  have  more  sympathy  with  the 
fellow  who  seduces  a  village  maiden  in  natural  fashion, 
provided  he  behaves  with  any  sort  of  humanity  after- 
wards, than  with  your  habitual  blackguard.  In  either 
case  he  should  be  man  enough  to  shoulder  his  respon- 
sibilities. I  fancy  that  the  thoughts  of  Don  Juan  in 
the  poem  must  have  been  blacker  than  his  mantle.  I 
don't  mean  that  he  was  worrying  about  the  moral  issue, 
but  that  he  must  have  had  a  feeling  of  emptiness,  of 
smallness,  a  frittering  sense  like  that  of  the  gambler 
who  has  lost  his  all  in  petty  stakes  and  has  never  had 
the  thrill  of  the  really  big  throw.  I  agree  that,  chastity 
in  itself  is  no  better  than  silence  or  motionlessness  or 
any  other  negation  that  may  be  a  virtue  on  occasion. 
Passionate  love  comes  to  an  end.    We've  got  to  change, 


200  RESPONSIBILITY 

to  mellow  into  something  with  passion  in  its  bones. 
All  life  that  is  worth  living,  and  love  is  a  part  of  life, 
is  a  matter  of  plodding,  of  keeping  on  when  you  are 
tired  and  long  after  you  are  tired.  Even  Claud  will  ad- 
mit that  the  great  artist  is  not  without  his  terrible  mo- 
ments of  exhaustion  and  lack  of  confidence.  And  yet 
he  plods.    I  admit  I  am  a  Puritan." 

"Es  fallt  kein  Meister  von  Himmel,"  said  Curt. 

"Exactly.  And  neither  do  lovers  fall  from  heaven," 
Westrom  replied  with  an  air  of  finality.  "Being  a 
good  lover  is  thundering  hard  work." 

But  Rodd  was  not  to  be  put  off. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  we  mean  the  same  thing,"  he 
said.  "What  Westrom  is  talking  about  sounds  to  me 
uncomfortablv  like  a  German  life  force.  All  this 
toughening  and  bracing  is  a  dull  job.  I  want  a  woman 
to  turn  to  when  I've  done  my  work,  and  I  don't  want 
to  talk  to  her  about  mv  work.  I  want  distraction. 
The  role  of  husband  seems  to  me  to  be  rather  ridicu- 
lous." 

"You  got  that  from  Vronsky  in  Anna  Kcurenina," 
said  Curt. 

"But  what  of  the  women  ?"  Westrom  insisted.  "Are 
they  content  to  be  looked  upon  as  distractions  ?  Sup- 
pose they  were  to  use  us  for  their  amusement  ?" 

"They  do,"  said  Rodd,  "only  you  won't  see  it  and 
daren't  admit  it.  There's  a  magnificent  passage  in  one 
of  Balzac's  letters  to  Madame  Hanska  in  which  he 
criticises  his  own  Secrets  de  la  Princesse  de  Cadignan. 
He  says  that  the  story  is  the  greatest  comedy  of  morals 
— morals,  mind  you,  not  manners — in  existence;  that 
the  subject  of  a  woman  of  thirty-seven  lying  like  a 
Trojan  to  convince  her  fourteenth  lover  of  her  virtue 
belongs  to  all  countries  and  all  times.    The  crux  of  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  201 

thing,  he  says,  was  to  justify  the  lies  by  the  force  of  the 
woman's  passion,  and  I  don't  think  that  either  Balzac 
or  Diana  bothered  their  heads  about  'companionship 
with  children.'  He  calls  the  story  a  masterpiece  and 
one  of  the  diamonds  of  his  crown." 

"I  won't  deny  that  Balzac  is  a  good  witness  for  you," 
said  Westrom.  "He's  the  sort  of  ton  weight  which 
shows  the  way  the  wind  was  blowing  in  his  time.  Now 
I  have  admitted  I  am  a  Puritan,  but  I  don't  want  you 
fellows  to  take  me  for  a  lean  and  desiccated  St  Anthony. 
As  Bunthorne  savs,  'there's  more  innocent  fun  in  me 
than  a  casual  spectator  might  imagine.'  " 

Most  of  our  discussions  resolved  themselves  into  a 
set  duel  between  Westrom  and  Rodd,  and  the  fore- 
going is  typical.  As  far  as  our  Socialism  went  the 
mould  in  which  we  formed  ourselves  was  more  or  less 
permanent.  We  were  young  then  and  liked  nothing 
better  than  to  burn  our  boats.  I  have  two  letters  which 
show  that  Rodd  at  least  never  wavered  in  his  belief  in 
the  communal  spirit  and  the  supreme  fitness  of  the 
people  for  self-government: 

"Let  me  call  your  attention  to  two  leaders  in  our 
"precious  party  journals.  The  Thunderer  denounces 
"the  Prime  Minister's  dilatoriness  and  points  out  that 
"nothing  has  been  done  this  session.  The  Morning 
"Warrior  calls  fiercely  for  a  dissolution  and  says  that 
"further  activity  under  the  Prime  Minister  means 
"disaster  to  the  Conservative  Party  for  some  time  to 
"come.  What  are  the  Tories  coming  to  when  their 
"faithful  watchdogs  bark  like  this? 

"Did  you  read  the  Prime  Minister's  amusing  speech 
"last  night  ?  I  always  thought,  and  I  find  from  Dicey 
"that  I  am  correct,  that  the  Septennial  Act  was  an 


202  RESPONSIBILITY 

"act  to  prevent  a  Government  from  stopping  in  power 
"for  a  longer  period  than  seven  years,  not  to  enable 
"it  to  stop  in  until  seven  years  have  expired.  The 
"Prime  Minister's  speech  shows  either"  an  inveterate 
"disinclination  or  a  hopeless  inability  to  interpret  his 
"authorities  correctly.  It  is  difficult  to.  suppose  that 
"he  does  not  understand  the  difference  between  an 
"  'enabling'  and  a  'disabling'  statute.  He  has  only 
"to  ask  his  law  officers.  His  other  precedents  are  en- 
tirely misleading  and  remind  one  of  Chamberlain. 
"I  suppose  it  is  impossible  in  English  politics  for  a 
"man  to  attain  to  the  highest  office  under  the  Crown 
"without  considerable  force  of  character,  and  that  every 
"Prime  Minister  we  have  had  for  a  hundred  years  has 
"firmly  believed  his  remaining  in  office  to  be  essential 
"to  the  safety  and  welfare  of  the  country.  Mr  Glad- 
stone appears  to  have  held  this  view  with  greater  per- 
sistence than  anybody  else,  but  no  matter.  Presum- 
ably, therefore,  there  is  no  little  astuteness  or  trick 
"of  debate,  self-deception  or  hoodwinking  of  the  enemy 
"to  which  a  highly  principled  minister  will  not  descend 
"and  feel  justified  in  descending  to  keep  his  country 
"from  the  abyss.  This  granted,  what  a  game  party 
"politics  become ! 

"The  Prime  Minister's  reference  to  Gladstone's  re- 
"fusal  to  resign  after  a  defeat  on  a  snap  division  is 
"quite  in  point  or  would  be,  did  he  not  omit  the  point, 
"which  is  that  Gladstone  offered  to  resign  if  the  Tories 
"were  prepared  to  come  in.  This  they  refused.  Glad- 
Stone  then  said :  'Very  well,  if  you  don't  come  in  why 
"should  I  go  out?'  and  refused  to  go  to  the  country. 
"But  even  then  he  afterwards  said  he  was  wrong  in  not 
"going  to  the  country. 

"The  Prime  Minister  quotes  as  a  precedent  the  very 


RESPONSIBILITY  203 

"case  most  favourable  to  his  opponents !  Does  lie  really 
"need  to  be  told  that  the  true  test  as  to  whether  a  Prime 
"Minister  should  stay  in  power  is  not  whether  he  can, 
"by  beating  up  his  forces  and  muzzling  the  newspapers, 
"command  a  majority,  but  whether  he  honestly  believes 
"that  he  has  the  confidence  of  the  country  ?  It  is  the 
"people  who  choose  the  Government  and  not  the  House 
"of  Commons. 

"If  after  a  defeat  in  the  House  a  Government  can 
"still  maintain  a  majority,  and  if  the  leader  honestly 
"believes  he  has  the  confidence  of  the  country  then  he 
"may  be  justified  in  stopping  in.  If  either  essential  is 
"absent  then  he  is  not  justified.  As  to  the  old  argument 
"about  endangering  the  peace  of  Europe  by  a  change  of 
"Government  and  the  certainty  of  the  Liberals  giving 
"away  the  Empire  to  Germany  in  handfuls,  what  utter 
"nonsense  it  is !  And  dangerous  nonsense  too.  If  the 
"Tories  can  put  forward  such  a  plea,  so  could  the  Lib- 
erals in  like  circumstance.  Imagine  a  Liberal  Gov- 
ernment engaged  in  a  European  war  and  making  the 
"usual  mess  of  things.  Defeated  in  the  House  they 
"could  calmly  point  to  the  Tory  precedent  and  say :  'We 
"refuse  to  go  out  because  of  the  precarious  condition 
"of  foreign  politics.' 

"I  take  it  that  no  politician  is  entitled  to  use  an  ar- 
"gument  which  in  the  mouth  of  an  opponent  would  hon- 
"estly  seem  to  him  to  be  a  menace  to  his  country's  wel- 
"fare.  It  may  be  that  under  such  ruling  as  this  the 
"game  of  party  politics  would  come  to  an  end.  I  do 
"not  think  that  this  would  be  a  grave  matter.  .  .  ." 

The  second  letter  was  written  some  three  days  before 
his  death,  during  the  great  German  offensive  of  March, 
1918.     It  runs: 


204  RESPONSIBILITY 

"Some  starveling,  some  dried  neat's-tongue,  some 
"tailor's  yard,  some  sheath,  some  bow-case,  some  vile 
"standing-tuck — what  the  devil  is  this  ? — of  a  political 
"ass  has  been  getting  on  to  his  hind  legs  and  braying. 
"He  says  with  reference  to  the  demands  of  appellants 
"under  the  Military  Service  Act  to  be  legally  repre- 
sented before  the  tribunals,  that  'the  question  is  one 
"of  human  life.'  I  read  further  that  the  statement  was 
"received  with  general  cheering.  Neither  the  fitchew 
"nor  the  soiled  horse  goes  to't  with  a  more  riotous  ap- 
"petite  than  our  public  fools  to  their  folly.  You  will 
"gather  that  I  am  in  something  of  a  fury.  Of  course  it 
"is  a  question  of  human  life,  in  the  sense  that  every 
"issue  before  a  nation  at  war  is  ultimately  a  question 
"of  human  life.  In  any  civilised  community  all  lives 
"belong  to  the  State  always ;  it  is  only  during  a  war  that 
"our  sodden  wits  are  able  to  apprehend  this.  To-day 
"the  life  of  every  man,  called  up  or  not,  belongs  to  the 
"State — even  the  Germans  know  that — and  the  deter- 
mining factor  before  the  tribunals  is  not  human  life 
"but  communal  usefulness. 

"The  lawyer  should  be  called  in,  not  by  the  appellant 
"and  for  the  usual  purpose  of  confusing  the  issue,  but 
"by  the  State  and  the  appellant  acting  together,  and  in 
"cases  where  there  is  genuine  difficulty  in  deciding 
"whether  a  man  is  likely  to  serve  his  country  better  as  a 
"soldier  or  as  a  'bus-conductor.  To  suggest  that  legal 
"aid  should  be  employed  on  behalf  of  an  appellant  as 
"against  the  State  is  to  assume  the  worst  type  of 
"embusque,  or  traitor  if  you  like  it  better.  Of  course, 
"a  statement  that  the  question  is  one  of  communal  use- 
fulness would  not  have  roused  a  single  cheer, 
"even  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Neither  the  public 
"nor  its  representatives  have  budged  an  inch  during  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  205 

last  twenty  years  in  their  attitude  of  indifference  to 
the  communal  question.  Politicians  go  on  with  their 
individualist  prattle,  and  audiences  to  use  about  one 
fiftieth  of  the  intelligence  with  which  it  is  polite  to 
credit  them.  I  doubt  whether  we  humans  have  as 
many  brains  as  the  animalcule  in  a  pond.  God  must 
use  an  enormous  miscroscope  to  perceive  us !" 

§  iv 

But  all  our  meetings  were  not  cast  in  sombre  mood. 
More  cheerful  was  the  one  at  which  it  was  decided  that 
Ransom  should  leave  Strumbach's.  We  had  by  this 
time  established  a  code  of  procedure.  Each  monthly 
meeting  was  convened  with  a  definite  object  and  the 
"Strumbach"  dinner  was  called  to  decide:  first,  which 
were  the  two  best  lines  of  English  poetry;  second, 
whether  we  would  admit  to  the  cenacle  young  Oscar 
Krauss,  son  of  the  mayor  and  a  wealthy  youngster  with 
some  intellectual  pretensions;  and  third,  what  to  do 
about  Ransom  and  his  employer.  I  shall  take  these  mat- 
ters in  their  proper  order.  But  first  you  must  know 
that  at  each  meeting  members  were  expected  to  bring 
to  the  notice  of  the  society  the  bourgeois  enormities  de- 
tected by  them  since  the  previous  meeting.  It  will  be 
noted  that  we  managed  to  combine  with  our  Socialism  a 
very  fine  brand  of  aristocratic  scorn. 

Reinecke  had  been  at  pains  to  explain  to  us  the  mean- 
ing of  a  word  partly  Jewish  partly  Hamburg  slang, 
which  stands  for  all  errors  of  taste  and  tact,  all  preten- 
tiousnesses, stupidities,  fussinesses,  effusivenesses,  vul- 
garities, the  whole  caboodle  of  German  emphasis  soever 
— the  word  Jcemach.  Nearly  all  Germans,  explained 
Reinecke,  are  Jcemach;  their  mental  furniture,  like  that 
of    the    boarding-house    mantelshelf,    is    one    colossal 


206  RESPONSIBILITY 

kemach.  The  luggage  with  which  our  friend  had  set 
out  from  Germany  had  included  a  dress-shirt  embroid- 
ered with  forget-me-nots  and  a  motto.  This  atrocity 
worn  at  our  first  meeting  was  then  and  there  torn  off 
its  owner's  back  and  cremated.  The  whole  Victorian 
era  was  one  huge  kemach,  we  had  agreed.  The  word 
eluded  Westrom,  whereas  the  rest  of  us  shivered  at  the 
mere  thought  that  we  might  in  the  remotest  way  bo 
affected  with  the  mysterious  taint.  An  album  was  in- 
stituted for  the  recording  of  all  authenticated  instances 
of  the  kemach,  and  we  found  in  the  daily  press  our 
happiest  hunting-ground. 

On  the  night  of  the  Strumbach  dinner  Curt  led  off. 

A  young  music-hall  star  Beeing  an  alleged  photograph 
of  herself  "in  diaphanous  attire"  displayed  for  sale 
had  written: 

"Other  actresses  hein?  equally  injured  with  myself, 
I  feel  it  urgent   that  1   Bhould  take  action.     That  wo 

should  have  the  g 1  fortune  to  Btand  well  with  the 

public  is  no  reason  why  we  should  l>e  represented  as 
having  posed  before  the  camera  in  nightdresses  or  other 
indecorous  garb." 

This  was  solemnly  accorded  a  place  in  the  register. 
Ransom  then  rose,  crimson  with  pleasure.     He  had 
bagged  the  following: — 

"It  was  at  the  conclusion  of  the  play,  when  the  hero 
and  heroine  were  locked  in  a  tender  embrace,  that  the 
act-drop  refused  to  work.  Long  the  lovers  stood.  At 
last,  realising  the  situation,  thev  separated,  bowed  low 

and  withdrew.  The  safety  curtain  then  took  the  place 
of  his  ornate  bid  more  caprieious  sister." 


RESPONSIBILITY  207 

To  this  also  were  accorded  the  honours  of  perpetuity. 
I  followed  with  an  account  of  a  duchess  who  had 
eloped 

"without  impedimenta,  save  a  few  serviceable  jewels." 

This  was  the  best  I  had  been  able  to  find  and  I  was 
grieved  that  it  was  turned  down. 

"I've  got  you  all  stiff,"  said  Rodd,  jumping  to  his 
feet.  "I've  discovered  the  most  colossal  hemach  since 
— he  hesitated  for  a  worthy  comparison — since  our 
great  Queen  was  scandalised  at  the  presentation  of 
'Mademoiselle  Sarah  Bernhardt  et  son  fils.y "  He 
pulled  out  of  his  pocket  what  appeared  to  be  a  copy  of  a 
musical  paper. 

"Look  at  this,"  he  shouted,  waving  the  thing  in  the 
air,  "it's  this  week's  copy  of  The  High  C !"  His  voice 
dropped  to  the  hush  of  awe  as  he  read,  after  the  manner 
of  one  reciting  a  miracle: 

"A  composer's  tonnage  varies  with  the  music.  For 
instance  Chopin's  Polonaise  in  A  flat  has  a  passage 
which  takes  two  minutes  to  play.  During  these  two 
minutes  the  total  pressure  brought  to  bear  on  the  keys 
is  equal  to  three  tons.  It  would  not,  however,  be  safe 
to  base  a  general  estimate  on  these  figures  as  Chopin 
has  many  passages  which  require  the  greatest  delicacy 
of  execution.  The  weight  of  an  hour's  playing  of  this 
composer  varies  from  twelve  to  as  much  as  eighty-four 
tons." 

And  he  sat  down  with  a  beatific  smile. 
Bissett  rose,  bowed  gravely  to  Claud,  and  called  for 
a  magnum  of  champagne. 

"It  shall  be  suitably  honoured,"  he  said.     "Gentle- 


208  RESPONSIBILITY 

men,  charge  your  glasses.  I  give  you  Chopin's  ton- 
nage!" 

We  drank  the  toast  in  silence  and  then  Claud  with  a 
little  hysterical  laugh  hurled  his  glass  into  the  fire- 
place. We  all  followed  suit  except  of  course  Westrom, 
and  then  Reinecke,  weeping  on  Claud's  shoulder,  led 
him  round  the  room  in  a  slow,  bear-like  waltz. 

"Himmel,"  he  said,  "it  is  enough  to  run  about  the 
trees.  The  man  who  wrote  that  is  no  ordinary  kemach. 
I  enioy  him  famously." 

Comparative  quiet  being  restored,  a  discussion  was 
then  entered  upon  as  to  whether  you  could  wear  away 
a  rose  by  smelling  it,  a  tree  by  looking  at  it,  or  an  orches- 
tra by  listening  to  it  with  millions  of  ears.  For  half- 
an-hour  brilliant  if  false  analogies  were  adduced  in 
sufficient  quantity  to  have  carpeted  a  field.  Next  we 
fell  to  decision  of  the  boyish  question  as  to  the  two 
finest  lines  in  English  poetry. 

Ransom  led  off  with 

And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers 
Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy  Troy. 

from  Ulysses. 

Westrom  was  urgent  on  behalf  of: 

O!  how  shall  summer's  honey  breath  hold  out 
Against  the  wraekful  siege  of  battering  days.  .  .  . 

"There's  no  moral  issue  there,   anyhow,"  he  said, 
I  fancied  a  trifle  wistfully. 
I  wanted  the  familiar: 

Wfrite  loyal  cantoons  of  contemned  love. 

and 

Halloo  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills, 


RESPONSIBILITY  209 

but  they  were  ruled  out  on  account  of  the  intervening 
line.  Other  suggestions  I  forget,  just  as  I  forget  which 
way  the  verdict  went. 

Young  Krauss's  application  to  be  admitted  as  a 
chosen  spirit  caused  us  some  heart-searching. 

"What's  he  done  to  be  admitted  ?"  asked  Rodd. 

"What's  he  done  to  be  refused  ?"  countered  Westrom. 

Bissett  recalled  the  incident  of  a  cousin  of  his  who 
had  been  elected  to  the  Oriel  Club,  for  which  the  essen- 
tial qualification  was  literary  or  artistic  eminence,  on 
the  ground  that  he  had  played  half-back  for  Scotland. 

"Why  not  set  him  a  test-paper?"  asked  Ransom. 
"Not  the  ordinary  stuff  that  crammers  want,  but  a 
paper  to  find  out  what  his  type  of  mind  is — whether 
he's  our  sort,  in  fact.  It  won't  matter  if  he  answers 
all  wrong;  the  point  is  how  he  shapes." 

We  joyfully  agreed  and  proceeded  then  and  there 
to  draw  up  the  paper.  Fortunately  I  still  have  the 
menu  card  on  the  back  of  which  I  made  notes  of  the 
twelve  questions.  It  would  take  too  long  to  set  forth 
the  intricate  arguments  for  and  against  each  poser,  and 
it  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  specify  their  individual 
sponsors.    I  will  content  myself  with  the  list : 

1.  Are  rabbits  granted  an  extraordinary  number  of 
young  as  compensation  for  being  an  easy  prey,  or  is 
their  destruction  in  large  numbers  a  direct  consequence 
of  there  being  so  many  of  them? 

2.  All  life  is,  au  fond,  at  once  sensual  and  moral. 
Discuss  this. 

3.  Madame  Vauquer  was  nee — what  ? 

4.  What  English  monarch  was  the  most  unconscion- 
able time  living  ? 

5.  The  bot-fly  lays  her  eggs  on  the  hairs  of  horses' 


210  RESPONSIBILITY 

legs.  The  horse  licks  its  legs  and  swallows  the  eggs, 
which  next  appear  in  the  form  of  grubs  in  the  animal's 
hide,  whence  they  hatch  out.  Flowers  are  fertilised 
by  the  pollen  which  clings  to  the  feet  of  the  bee  in 
search  of  food.  Compare  the  felicity  of  these  ar- 
rangements with  the  ingenuity  of  the  human  marriage 
settlement. 

6.  Have  trees  a  future  life? 

7.  He  that  will  not  work  neither  shall  he  eat.  Con- 
nect this  with  the  House  of  Lords. 

8.  You  are  walking  along  a  lonely  road  in  India 
with  a  native  servant.  The  boy  picks  up  an  object 
which  you  take  to  be  a  diamond  of  greater  value  than 
the  Koh-i-noor,  and  which  he  refuses  to  sell.  How 
would  you  dispose  of  the  body  ? 

9.  What  in  your  opinion  has  a  man  to  live  for  who 
has  made  as  much  money  as  he  wants  and  who  has 
seen  his  sons  established  and  his  daughters  married  ? 

10.  What  would  you  do  with  a  million  pounds  ? 

11.  How  would  you  propose  to  spend  eternity? 

12.  Write  a  short  essay  justifying  your  existence. 

Young  Krauss  made  the  mistake  of  not  taking  the 
paper  seriously.  He  returned  flippant  answers  and 
was  cast  back  into  the  outer  darkness. 

The  main  business  of  the  session  was  heralded  when 
Bissett,  rapping  for  silence,  said:  "Now  then,  Arthur, 
tell  us  all  about  it." 

Ransom  hesitated,  then  began:  "Well,  you  fellows, 
it's  like  this.  I  can't  stand  Strumbach  any  longer.  I 
don't  mind  his  lying  and  thieving,  his  little  red  eyes, 
his  vulgar  generosity.  He's  a  successful  man  and 
they're  his  trade-marks.  But  he's  getting  hold  of  me, 
he's  making  his  life  mine,  and  I  can't  bear  it."     He 


RESPONSIBILITY  211 

paused  for  a  moment  and  went  on:  "I  feel  that  I'm 
being  caught  in  the  wheels  of  some  terrible  machine, 
the  machine  called  greed.  Greed  is  the  one  ice-cold 
thing  in  hell  and  it's  numbing  me.  It's  terrible  to  have 
to  live  with  it.  It  freezes  up  everything  that  makes 
your  soul  your  own.  Then  there  are  times  when  I 
feel  that  I  am  being  devoured  by  some  giant  spider. 
Eveiy  time  I  go  down  to  that  awful  warehouse  I  feel 
the  darkness  closing  over  me,  literally.  I'm  always  last 
in  my  room;  I  brood  so  during  the  day  that  I  get  be- 
hind with  my  work.  To-night  when  I  left  the  office  I 
was  the  last  except  for  a  lot  of  pale-faced  boys  copying 
letters  when  they  ought  to  have  been  playing  cricket. 
They  will  be  there  till  ten.  Often  when  I'm  all  alono 
except  for  these  fellows  copying,  ugly  little  spirits 
come  out  from  behind  the  piles,  and  leer  and  gibber  at 
me.  ISTo  one  sees  them,  but  they're  there.  And  then 
I  think  of  Strumbach  and  I  can't  see  his  face.  I  only 
know  that  it  looks  at  me  from  his  desk  in  the  dark  and 
that  his  mouth  is  restless  and  wet  and  slavers  at  me. 
Or  he  will  creep  up  behind  me  with  that  stealthy  tread 
of  his  and  put  his  soft  hand  on  my  shoulder.  And  I 
can  feel  his  polished  nails  dig  into  my  flesh  and  I  turn 
round  and  there's  no  one  there." 

"Steady,"  said  Westrom. 

"It's  my  job  to  devil  for  Strumbach,  to  tell  lies  for 
him,  to  bear  false  witness  to  order.  When  he  has  a 
customer  it's  to  me  that  he  turns  for  corroboration. 
'Didn't  ve  pay  sevenpenee  for  zis?'  he  will  say,  and 
I  shall  stammer  and  blush  and  try  to  forget  it  cost 
fivepence.  It  is  always  on  these  occasions  that  I  feel 
the  old  man's  power  over  me.  There's  something  fas- 
cinating about  his  small,  astute  eyes;  they're  like  the 
eyes  of  a.  rogue  elephant.     I  think  he  hypnotises  me 


212  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  his  customers  too.  At  least  they  never  notice  my 
hesitation,  and  perhaps  I  don't  hesitate.  The  old  man 
will  stand  there,  venerable,  patriarchal,  with  one  hand 
round  his  customer's  neck  and  the  other  pawing  the 
poor  fool's  face,  until  I  give  an  answer.  He  has  a 
little  red  devil — nobody  sees  it  but  me — which  stands 
at  his  elbow  and  jogs  it  whenever  his  patron  is  in  dan- 
ger of  forgetting  something.  He's  wonderful,  I  tell 
you.  When  he's  in  the  full  passion  of  selling,  a  blue 
flame  encircles  him,  comes  up  from  between  the  floor- 
boards and  casts  a  glare  over  him.  Strumbach  is  evil 
but  great.  There's  not  a  merchant  in  Manchester  who 
wouldn't  be  Strumbach  if  he  could.  He's  so  real,  so 
earnest,  so  devoid  of  affectation,  like  all  the  men  of  his 
race!  You  can  see  his  ancestors  on  the  temple  steps. 
Put  Strumbach  among  them  with  a  little  table  and  a 
few  shekels  and  he  wouldn't  waste  time  thinking  about 
the  Eastern  sky  and  the  incongruity  of  it  all.  He'd  be 
selling.  I  don't  believe  Christ  would  have  dared  to 
overturn  his  table." 

And  the  outburst  over,  Ransom  put  his  head  down 
and  we  saw  his  shoulders  shake. 

"But  what  do  you  want  us  to  do?"  Westrom  asked 
after  a  pause. 

The  boy  lifted  his  head. 

"I  want  you  to  help  me  to  pluck  up  courage  and  to 
tell  no  more  lies.  I  want  not  to  be  a  coward,  to  recover 
my  self-respect,  to  do  honourable  work  and  be  paid 
for  honourable  work." 

"The  rate's  low,"  said  Rodd.  "Better  go  nawying. 
What  exactly  is  it  that  has  brought  you  to  this  pitch? 
Haven't  you  known  for  years  that  you  can't  serve  both 
God  and  Strumbach?" 

"Nothing  in  particular  has  happened,"  replied  Ran- 


RESPONSIBILITY  213 

som.  "It's  the  drop  of  water  and  the  wearing  away  of 
the  stone,  I  suppose.  I've  been  selling  all  the  afternoon 
to  a  loud-voiced,  ill-mannered  German — the  worst  sort. 
Strumbach  was  behind  me  and  his  mere  presence  re- 
duced me  to  such  a  state  of  terror  that  at  last  I  sold 
a  lot  of  cloth  which  we  haven't  got  and  can't  possibly 
buy.  Sooner  or  later  I  shall  have  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it  to  the  old  man.  But  that  isn't  all.  We've 
been  putting  Hegner  and  Brandt's  registered  stamp 
on  our  goods  and  trusting  to  luck  not  to  be  found  out. 
The  boat  containing  our  last  shipment  met  with  an  ac- 
cident and  has  had  to  put  back  to  Liverpool.  The 
whole  cargo  is  damaged  and  the  insurance  people  are 
selling  the  stuff  for  what  it'll  fetch.  I've  got  to  go 
down  to  the  docks  to-morrow  and  buy  up  all  the  piece- 
goods.  The  old  man  daren't  risk  any  of  them  coming 
back  on  the  market,  even  to  the  fent-dealers;" 

"Well?" 

"Well,  I  just  want  the  stuff  to  come  back,  and  I  want 
the  old  man  to  get  hit  and  hard  hit.  It's  the  chance 
of  a  lifetime.    It  means  the  sack  for  me,  of  course." 

"You  can't  have  it  both  ways,"  said  Bissett.  "You 
can't  both  want  to  get  free  and  be  frightened  of  the 
sack  at  the  same  time." 

y  "Oh,  can't  you  ?"  threw  in  Eodd.  "I  knew  a  man 
who  went  out  to  buy  a  pistol  to  shoot  himself  with 
and  was  so  upset  on  finding  that  he  had  walked  under 
a  ladder  that  he  put  it  off  to  a  more  auspicious  occa- 
sion. 

"It's  not  getting  the  sack  that  worries  me.  Of  course 
I  must  go  to  Liverpool.  So  long  as  I  am  Strumbach's 
servant  I  must  obey  orders." 

Westrom  nodded. 

"I'm  thinking  of  plucking  up  enough  courage  to 


214  RESPONSIBILITY 

give  him  notice  as  soon  as  I  get  back.  I  want  you 
fellows  to  advise." 

So  we  went  into  committee. 

We  elicited  from  Ransom  that  he  had  no  ties  of  any 
sort  and  a  hundred  and  seventy  pounds  in  the  bank. 

"Enough  to  live  on  for  two  years,"  said  Westrom. 

"Three,"  said  Rodd;  "I've  done  it." 

We  looked  to  Westrom. 

"Well,"  he  said  slowly,  "it  comes  to  this.  Here  is  a 
fellow  getting  three  hundred  and  fifty  a  year,  has  what 
you'd  call  good  prospects  and  is  profoundly  unhappy. 
If  he  had  old  parents  or  a  wife  and  family  I  do  not  say 
that  it  would  not  be  his  duty  to  bear  with  unhappiness. 
We  don't  all  suffer  misery,  perhaps,  but  most  of  us 
have  to  put  up  with  a  very  middling  kind  of  bliss. 
Now  Ransom  has  no  need  to  put  up  with  anything.  He 
is  at  perfect  liberty  to  develop  in+o  a  great  artist,  a 
magnificent  criminal  or  any  one  of  the  stupendous 
things  that  bring  wretchedness  in  their  train.  Ran- 
som wants  to  be  an  artist;  he  is  sure  of  the  zeal  and 
the  ardour  but  hesitates  as  to  the  ability.  He's  fright- 
ened for  his  bread  and  butter.    Am  I  right?" 

Ransom  nodded. 

"Very  well,  then.  He  has  as  many  years  or  months 
as  a  hundred  and  seventy  pounds  will  go  into  to  find 
out  whether  he  has  ability  and  persistence.  If  he  fails 
he'll  be  miserable,  but  then  he  is  going  to  be  miserable 
anyhow.  I  give  it  as  my  opinion  that  no  man  ever 
made  a  throw  with  so  little  risk.  In  fact,  it  isn't  glo- 
rious enough.  It's  nearly  sane,  and  I  expect  that  will 
take  some  of  the  edge  off  for  you  high-flyers." 

And  so  it  was  settled. 

Strumbach  made  no  difficulty  at  all  about  Ransom's 
leaving,  insisting  only  that  he  should  go  at  once.     He 


RESPONSIBILITY  215 

would  have  no  half-servants,  as  he  called  them,  their 
minds  elsewhere,  their  bodies  still  drawing  his  pay. 
The  boy  told  us  that  the  old  man  put  his  arm  round 
his  neck  and  led  him  gently  down  the  stairs. 

"Business,  he  was  never  cut  out  for  you.  I  saw  that 
long  ago,  bot  I  never  discharge  anybody  even  though 
I  haf  made  a  mistake.  My  boy,  I  vish  you  all  successes. 
Ven  you  are  a  big  man  already,  you  shall  baint  my 
bortrait.  TJnd  if  you  haf  need  of  Strumbach  till  then 
is  he  not  always  here?     So!" 

And  with  that  he  gently  pushed  his  clerk  through  the 
big  door  and  into  the  sunlit  street. 

When  Ransom  came  to  himself  he  found  that  he  was 
holding  in  his  hand  a  fifty-pound  note. 

§v 

And  now  I  must  tell  about  Clare  at  the  price  of  re- 
calling old  humiliations.  I  know  nothing  more  tragic 
than  for  the  cloud-capped  towers  and  solemn  temples 
which  are  youth's  passion  to  fade  into  thin  and  less 
than  thin  remembrance.  I  will  not  have  it  that  the 
first  meetings  of  lovers  are  only  the  senses'  stir.  I 
will  not  have  it,  most  passionately  will  I  not  have  it, 
that  my  ardour  for  Clare  Tremblow  was  not  in  the 
beginning  a  fine  thing.  I  was  content  to  touch  the 
hem  of  her  dress,  her  hand ;  I  was  prepared  for  the 
lover's  abasements  and  humilities.  Once  more  I  must 
suppose  this  to  be  a  part  of  Nature's  cunning.  For 
those  whom  passion  does  not  affright  she  lays  her 
lustiest  snare;  for  those  who  would  refine  life  to  an 
abstraction  she  weaves  a  more  delicate  lure.  It  is  the 
normal  commonplace  that  love  must  take  its  stand  on 
the  eternal,  your  mistress's  hand  smell  of  immortality. 


216  RESPONSIBILITY 

It  is  the  "weakling  refiner  who  insists  on  the  trick  of 
spirituality.  I  could  ransack  the  poets  to  prove  that 
the  monstruosity  in  love,  as  Trolius  has  it,  is  indeed 
that  the  will  is  infinite  and  the  performance  limited,  hut 
in  a  more  ethereal  sense  than  that  rude  hero's.  Agreed 
that  "love  is  not  love  which  alters  when  it  alteration 
finds."  Agreed,  passionately,  since  the  change  is  in 
the  beloved  alone.  Your  true  needle  is  constant  to  the 
pole  howsoever  the  pole  change;  it  is  the  lover  who 
should  beware  his  proper  flaw.  I  could  descant  at  length 
upon  the  now  stale  and  little  remarkable  theme,  the 
descent  through  rapture  to  habit.  Let  us  lighten  the 
misery  of  that  grey  decline  with  the  recognition  that 
at  least  they  were  heights  from  which  we  fell.  I  am 
not  disposed  to  pour  scorn  on  those  eager  victims  of 
the  constant  tumble,  for  ever  picking  themselves  up  and 
for  ever  falling.  Some  there  are  who  have  the  very 
devil's  knack  of  falling  out  of  love,  and  the  measure 
of  their  disillusion  is  the  measure  of  their  renewed 
hope.  Every  true  lover  knows  that  pressure  of  living 
which  is  higher  than  the  normal.  The  air  he  breathes  is 
rarer,  the  blood  is  wine  in  his  veins.  He  is  a  martyr 
demanding  a  slower  fire,  a  fanatic  insisting  that  the 
sun  be  brought  nearer  his  lidless  eyes.  He^  is  in  ecstasy, 
and  it  is  this  ecstasy  and  not  the  baser  satisfactions 
which  are  passion's  real  stir.  What  I  am  driving  at  is 
that  there  was  beauty  in  my  relationship  to  Clare. 

To  begin  with  she  was  called  not  Clare  but  Clara — 
a  name  for  which  I  have  nearly  as  great  a  detestation 
as  for  Cora.  Cora  belongs  essentially  to  a  Red  Indian's 
squaw,  though  I  know  not  to  what  jumble  of  childish 
reading  I  may  attribute  this.  Clara  is  the  middle- 
aged  Englishwoman,  with  sharp  inquisitorial  eye  and 
hair  strained  to  a  knot.     The  Gadgetts,  Twinneys  and 


RESPONSIBILITY  217 

Limpkins  of  this  world  are  called  Clara.  This  is  not  an 
insanity;  there  is  a  philosophy  of  names.  Who  could 
conceive  a  Rosalind  that  was  not  straight  as  a  peeled 
wand,  a  Viola  whose  nose  was  less  than  tip-tilted,  a 
Portia  who  should  use  features  other  than  those  of 
Ellen  Terry  ?  The  change  from  Clara  to  Clare — which 
is  a  beautiful  name — was  decreed  the  first  evening  I 
met  her  coming  from  work  in  one  of  Manchester's 
dingiest  suburbs.  Think  you  that  heroines  should  all 
be  dressed  in  silks  and  satins  ?  I  declare  that  my  mis- 
tress shall  be  of  the  class  and  wear  the  dress  I  say  she 
shall.  I  remember  that  she  wore  a  straw  hat  none  too 
trim  and  that  she  wore  it  a  little  to  one  side.  The  face 
under  that  hat  ?  "Item,  two  lips,  indifferent  red ;  Item, 
two  grey  eyes  with  lids  to  them."  Oh,  simple  romancers 
who  have  not  learnt  from  your  master  and  think  you 
may  befool  your  readers  into  taking  your  woman  at 
catalogue  value.  I  know  whether  I  am  pleased  with- 
out a  detailed  map  of  countenance.  If  red  hair  de- 
lights me  then  shall  Manon  Lescaut  be  flame-coloured 
and  Emma  Bovary  too,  Elizabeth  Bennet  and  Lorna 
Doone,  insignificant  La  Valliere  and  most  sad  Tess. 
I  am  not  concerned  with  the  particular  prettiness  of 
Clare,  nor  even  whether  she  would  have  pleased  other 
eyes  than  mine.  To  me  she  was  beautiful,  with  a  beauty 
of  the  sombre,  sullen  order;  her  hair  raven-black  and 
rebellious.  Her  countenance  showed  a  capacity  for 
immense  resentment. 

"Why  don't  you  put  your  hat  on  straight  ?"  I  asked, 
stopping  dead  in  front  of  her  and  without  any  of  the 
common  manoeuvring. 

"Because  I  was  too  tired  to  bother,"  she  replied  sim- 
ply. She  was  in  no  way  startled  at  the  direct  address, 
and  yet  I  had  the  feeling  that  it  was  the  first  time  that 


218  RESPONSIBILITY 

this  had  happened  to  her.  I  proposed  that  we  should 
stroll  in  a  little  park  near  by  and  listen  to  the  band. 

"I  haven't  had  my  tea,"  she  objected. 

I  took  her  to  a  pastrycook's  and  we  made  some  ex- 
traordinary meal.  Then  we  walked  slowly  to  the  park 
and  sat  down  on  an  empty  form  and  listened  to  a 
police  band — what  the  devil  have  the  police  to  do  with 
music  ? — and  watched  the  dying  sun  set  a  last  display 
for  our  especial  benefit.  Slowly  the  fronts  of  the  mean 
houses  surrounding  the  park  turned  to  amber,  and  their 
broken  roofs  to  turquoise.  You  would  have  said  the 
sheen  of  pigeons'  breasts.  The  cracked  and  dingy  win- 
dows, blind  eyes  in  commonplace  countenances,  shone 
with  that  glory  of  molten  gold  which  is  so  rare  a  spec- 
tacle of  the  town  and  the  commonest  property  of  the 
sea.  I  have  only  to  behold  this  ordinary  miracle  in 
the  westward-facing  windows  of  preposterous  esplanades 
to  bring  back  the  memory  of  Clare.  We  sat,  and  I  held 
her  hand  unaffectedly  and  without  embarrassment.  We 
watched  the  shadows  lengthen  and  the  night  grow 
violet.  A  hansom  jingled  past  and  its  bell  was  of 
purest  silver.  Lamps  were  lit  for  the  players  in  the 
bandstand  and  the  world  took  on  a  fairy  quality.  We 
said  little;  there  seemed  so  little  that  need  be  said. 
The  musicians  were  a  trifle  noisy,  but  apart  from 
them  the  world  was  very  still.  Suddenly  Clare  shivered 
and  stood  up. 

"I  must  be  going,"  she  said. 

I  did  not  delay  her  and  she  would  not  let  me  accom- 
pany her  beyond  the  gates.  Then  in  answer  to  my 
entreaty:  "Yes,  to-morrow  if  you  like.  At  the  same 
time.     But  I  shall  have  had  my  tea." 

We  shook  hands  and  she  went  lightly  away. 

The  following  evening  was  wet  beyond  lovers'  pos- 


RESPONSIBILITY  219 

sibilities,  and  also  the  next  day.  The  third  evening 
saw  me  approaching  the  park  gate  with  all  a  lover's 
trepidations.  Would  she  be  there?  Might  she  not 
have  been  run  over  in  the  interval  or  attacked  by  some 
disease?  And  I  pictured  her  in  a  workshop  entan- 
gled among  wheels,  and  a  thousand  other  tragedies. 
So  all  young  lovers.  But  none  of  these  terrible  things 
had  happened. 

"That's  two  nights  I've  been  wet  through/'  she  said 
petulantly,  and  I  had  to  make  for  my  lesser  courage 
what  apologies  were  possible. 

We  sat  there  till  the  stars  came  lazily  out  and  long 
after.  There  was  no  band — the  police  may  not  be 
musical  more  than  once  a  week — and  we  talked.  I 
do  not  remember  that  in  three  hours  we  said  anything 
of  importance.  I  did  not  kiss  her.  After  a  time  I 
noticed  that  her  hands  were  work-stained  and  her  shoes 
not  too  defiant  of  weather.  She  refused  all  word  as  to 
where  she  worked  and  the  nature  of  her  work,  as  to 
where  she  lived  and  what  her  family.  She  was  as  silent 
about  herself  as  a  star  or  a  flower.  I  was  sure  that  she 
was  not  a  servant;  she  lacked  the  pert  coquetry  which 
is  the  badge  of  that  sad  tribe.  She  knew  nothing  of 
manners  but  I  swear  she  was  not  common.  Just  as  in 
this  world  you  cannot  have  money  without  the  spurious 
coin,  so  you  cannot  have  manners  without  their  counter- 
feit, which  is  commonness.  Clare  was  a  young  savage 
and  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  feign  a  sentiment  or  to 
be  other  than  her  natural  self.  Her  frankness  was  com- 
plete and  could  be  disconcerting. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  it  curious  that  I,  with  my 
considerable  knowledge  of  the  most  wide-awake  au- 
thors, should  have  been  so  much  less  aware  of  life  than 
this  clear-eyed,  illiterate  girl.    Thanks  to  Rodd's  coach- 


220  RESPONSIBILITY 

ing  I  was  supremely  versed  in  the  resentment  of  the 
abandoned  mistress ;  I  could  have  told  you  how  Gabriel- 
Jean  -  Anne  -  Victor  -  Benjamin  -  Georges  -  Ferdinand  - 
Charles  -  Edouard  -  Kusticoli  de  la  Palferine  wiped  his 
razors  on  some  dancer's  love  letters;  I  could  have 
reckoned  to  a  hundred  thousand  francs  the  cost  to  Nu- 
cingen  of  his  passion  for  Esther;  could  have  made  it 
clear  how  Lucian  hanged  himself,  but  not  for  love. 
I  suppose  there  was  not  an  intrigue  in  the  Human 
Comedy  of  which  I  was  not  aware  down  to  the  most 
subtle  of  its  ramifications.  The  brilliant  Rastignac, 
the  super-dandy  de  Marsay  and  that  magnificent  scoun- 
drel Maxiine  de  Trailles  were  never  out  of  my  thoughts. 
And  yet  it  was  Clare  and  not  I  who  had  an  accurate 
understanding  of  the  implications  in  which  we  were 
soon  to  be  involved. 

Towards  the  end  of  September  we  discovered  that 
that  particular  summer's  breath  was  not  more  likely 
than  any  other  to  hold  out  against  the  siege  of  autumn. 
More  plainly,  evenings  began  to  fall  chill  and  the  police 
to  give  themselves  up  wholly  to  policing.  We  took  to 
meeting  at  the  humbler  theatres  of  the  town  where  I 
gleaned  what  conviction  in  an  actor  may  be,  provided 
his  hearers  be  sufficiently  simple.  I  learned  that  the 
matter  of  these  shocking  plays — the  shivering  flower- 
girl  wrapped  in  her  virtue  and  meagre  shawl,  the  starv- 
ing urchin  with  the  cut  and  bleeding  feet,  the  comic, 
kindly  policeman — may  be  the  very  stuff  of  life  in  the 
slums.  I  learned  to  see  realism  and  not  melodrama  in 
that  virtue  whose  choice  is  between  chastity  and  a  meal. 
My  passion  for  seeing  life  honestly  dates  from  this  time. 
Clare  was  not  afraid  of  the  realism  of  the  slums  and  I 
was  possessed  with  an  immense  curiosity.  We  would 
walk  hand  in  hand  through  the  lowest  and  most  dan- 


RESPONSIBILITY  221 

gerous  streets.  Those  who  live  in  the  comfortable  se- 
curity of  parlours  know  not  what  life  is. 

It  was  in  one  of  these  tawdry,  tenth-rate  booths  that 
I  heard  the  most  remarkable  of  lines,  a  line  never  to  be 
bettered  in  the  finest  playhouses  of  the  world.  It  was 
a  drama  of  Lancashire  life.  A  stalwart  stone-mason, 
rough  and  honest  in  his  corduroys,  addressing  a  bundle 
of  poverty-stricken  rags  threw  at  her  a  "My  lass,  I've 
four  pun'  a  week,  and  the  missus  thinks  I'm  getting 
three.  I  doan't  know  as  I  want  to  have  owt  to  do 
wi'  thee,  but  tha  can  have  the  odd  'un  till  summat  turns 
up."  Whereupon  the  pretty  wretch,  sturdily:  "But 
I  can't  take  it,  John.  I'm  an  honest  lass.  I  can't 
take  it  for  nothing." 

And  I  felt  Clare  tremble. 

Surely  the  problem  was  magnificently  stated.  Alas 
that  the  author  had  not  the  courage  of  his  promise 
and  that  the  play  petered  out  in  evasion  and  shunning. 
Since  no  melodramatic  hero  may  keep  pace  with  his 
first  fine  careless  quixotism  nor  villainously  clinch  a 
bargain,  so  it  seemed  that  the  girl  must  hug  her  inno- 
cence and  starve.  Luckily  the  stalwart's  stumbling- 
block  of  a  wife  died  of  consumption  in  the  fifth  act  as 
a  consequence  of  having  been  unfaithful  in  the  first, 
which  considerably  eased  the  dramatists's  path.  But  I 
have  never  forgotten  the  line. 

With  the  approach  of  winter  I  noticed  that  Clare  be- 
gan to  look  pinched  and  thin,  that  she  did  not  wear 
many  changes  of  dress,  and  that  if  her  cloak  got  wet 
through  one  night  it  would  still  be  wet  the  next.  She 
had,  it  seemed,  no  other.  And  I  began  to  insist  upon 
a  visit  to  the  confectioner's  every  evening  whether  she 
pretended  to  having  had  tea  or  not,  and  from  time  to 
time  I  would  slip  small  sums  of  money  into  the  pocket 


222  RESPONSIBILITY 

of  her  little  jacket.  One  evening  Clare  faced  me  sud- 
denly and  said:  "This  must  stop,  Ned;  I  can't  go  on 
taking  your  money.  I'm  as  straight  as  the  girl  in  the 
play."  " 

I  do  not  remember  that  I  made  any  answer. 

It  was  difficult  to  find  some  one  to  talk  to  about 
Clare.  I  avoided  Westrom  as  one  instinctively  avoids 
those  good,  unswerving  natures  whose  warnings  are  re- 
pressive and  uncongenial.  Equally  I  avoided  Rodd  as 
being  too  brilliant  a  fellow  to  cany  any  serious  moral 
ballast.  Bissett  was  too  much  the  man  of  the  world 
and  Ransom  had  gone.  I  had  no  other  friends  and  so 
turned  to  Reinecke. 

"It  is  a  so  rotten  thing  to  harm  a  girl,"  said  Curt, 
"and  the  Englishman  is  very  much  afraid  of  it.  But 
I  am  a  German  and  Germans  have  an  all-roundness 
in  their  way  of  looking  at  things.  It  is  bad  to  be 
a  girl's  lover;  that  makes  miserable  for  her.  It  is 
bad  to  marry  her;  that  makes  foolish  for  us.  Once 
in  Paris  I  dined  with  a  Frenchman  who  had  married 
his  mistress.  He  wanted  to  eat  (Eufs  a  la  Cocotte  but 
did  not  dare  to  order.  No,  you  cannot  marry  her.  You 
must  not  see  her  any  more.  If  Nature  makes  the 
so  stupid  mistake  of  letting  people  fall  in  love  out  of 
their  class  that  is  no  reason  why  civilisation  and  culture 
should  make  mistakes  also.  There  are  countries  in 
which  a  man  may  have  many  wives  and  when  he  has 
ennui  he  gives  them  food  and  money  and  puts  them  on 
one  side.     Civilisation  says  that  is  wrong." 

"A  great  poet  has  declared  that  we  must  love  one 
woman  only  and  worship  her  through  years  of  noble 
deeds,"  I  said  fatuously. 

"Then  let  Nature  arrange  that  until  you  meet  the 
so  wonderful  woman  with  whom  this  miracle  is  pos- 


RESPONSIBILITY  223 

sible  you  meet  no  other  pleasant  and  agreeable  girl.  I 
knew  once  in  Buenos  Ayres  a  little  French  actress  who 
had  been  deserted  by  her  manager.  The  swine  had  run 
away  with  her  money  and  she  had  now  no  engagement 
to  make  more  money  with.  She  was  too  honourable  to 
run  about  the  streets  and  so  she  waited  for  le  bon  Dieu 
to  help  her.  I  acted  this  person  and  paid  four  hundred 
pesas  to  rescue  the  poor  girl  from  the  hands  of  people 
who  make  much  money  out  of  this  kind  of  misfor- 
tune. I  sent  her  back  to  Paris  with  her  fare  paid  and 
some  money  in  the  pocket.  ISTow  this  would  be  a  beauti- 
ful story  if  Curt  Keinecke  had  asked  nothing  in  re- 
turn. I  suppose  if  I  had  left  her  to  starve  that  would 
have  been  considered  virtue." 

"You  would  be  kicked  by  any  self-respecting  man 
for  talking  like  this,"  I  said. 

"Any  self-respecting  man  would  kick  himself  for 
speaking  what  he  really  thinks,"  retorted  Curt. 

The  conversation  did  not  make  matters  much  clearer. 
In  the  meantime  my  relations  with  Clare  remained  un- 
spoiled. 

§  vi 

A  letter  from  Claud  Rodd: 

20  Shufflebottom's  Cross, 
Crawley  Bridge. 
It  is  only  the  intellectually  lost,  my  dear  Ned,  who 
write  letters  because  they  have  news.     I  have  nothing 
to  say  and  am  therefore  full  of  matter. 

My  present  mood  is  very  Balzacian.  Le  vieux  mon- 
sieur has  me  in  his  toils ;  it  is  an  awful  thought  that 
there  is  nobody  of  the  young  generation  who  knows 
anything  about  him  except  me.    Your  ignorance  is  still 


224  RESPONSIBILITY 

pitiful;  you  might  almost  be  a  Frenchman!  Do  you 
think  you  could  tell  me  what  ultimately  became  of 
Madame  de  Bauseant  and  by  whom  her  house  was  in- 
habited after  her  betrayal  %  Do  you  know  whom  Maxiine 
de  Trailles  or  Rastignac  or  Ajuda-Pinto  married  ?  I'm 
in  the  middle  of  Le  Depute  d'Arcis.  Charles  Rabon's 
continuation  is  marvellous  and  there's  hardly  a  line  to 
which  one  can  point  and  say  "That's  not  Balzac!" 
He  has  had  the  tact  to  fill  up  with  some  of  the  lesser- 
known  characters,  le  Comte  et  la  Comtesse  de  l'Estorade, 
Madame  de  Camps,  MM.  de  Rhetore,  de  Ronquerolles 
and  others,  which  rounds  off  the  Comedy  splendidly. 
And  he  resuscitates  Vautrin  out  of  sheer  daring.  That 
arch-roue  Maxime  de  Trailles  plays  an  immense  part. 
He  marries  a  young  girl  with  a  dowry  of  over  a  mil- 
lion, which  seems  likely  to  be  his  last  achievement ;  and 
we  are  told  that  on  the  news  of  his  marriage  "son  car- 
rossier,  son  tailleur,  enfin  tous  ses  creanciers  firent  des 
illuminations  !" 

I  am,  I  think,  more  Balzacian  now  than  at  any  for- 
mer time;  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  been  so 
Balzacian.  Your  knowledge  of  him  is  superficial,  mine 
fundamental.  You  have  an  inkling  of  the  general  plan 
and  the  big  junctions  of  the  Human  Comedy ;  what  you 
don't  know  is  the  inner  workings,  the  small  roadside 
stations,  and  where  Balzac's  engine  stopped  to  take  up 
water.  If  I  fault  him  at  all  it  is  that  he  can  never 
be  less  than  stupendous.  He  ranges  the  whole  world 
but  does  not  move  easily  on  the  lower  slopes.  He  can 
be  sublime  without  achieving  the  graceful,  and  good 
honest  fun  is  at  all  times  beyond  him.  But  where  he 
is  unrivalled  is  in  his  dissection  of  human  folly.  Take 
the  divine  simplicity  of  Cesar  Birotteau,  the  cunning 
imbecility  of  Crevel,  the  crass  stupidity  of  Bargeton  and 


RESPONSIBILITY  225 

the  lovable  absurdities  of  the  old  maid  Rose  Cormon. 
"Mais,  ma  chere,  cest,  si  naturel  d'avoir  des  enfants." 
I  should  sometimes  be  tempted  to  think  that  Balzac 
despises,  were  it  not  that  this  is  the  one  thing  a  great 
mind  may  not  do.  I  feel  that  he  often  lacks  sympathy 
and  that  in  this  respect  he  is  more  of  a  transcribing  ma- 
chine than  an  artist.  In  fact,  Balzac  is  not  an  artist  at 
all  in  the  sense  that  art  is  selective.  He  is  comprehen- 
sive, God  in  a  world  of  his  own  creating.  He  writes 
down  in  the  simplest  way  possible  and  with  no  time  for 
fine  phrases  the  entire  human  animal,  complete  in  all  it 
does  and  says  down  to  the  last  shadow  of  a  thought  that 
trembles  for  a  moment  at  the  back  of  the  creature's 
brain.  He  turns  his  subject  completely  inside  out, 
shows  you  its  mental  and  moral  intestines  and  then 
packs  him  neatly  up  again,  dismissing  the  poor  be- 
wildered thing  with  a  contemptuous  pat  on  the  head. 
By  the  way  I  have  been  unfaithful  to  him  lately  to  the 
extent  of  re-reading  Flaubert's  L'Education.  Sentimeiv- 
tale.  And  yet  despite  my  increasing  admiration  for  this 
book  I  am  more  than  ever  convinced  that  Flaubert-could 
not  fill  a  large  canvas.  Just  as  I  can  never  write  se- 
riously upon  any  subject  without  submerging  myself 
fathoms  below  any  possible  meaning,  so  Flaubert  can- 
not leave  a  situation  without  so  thoroughly  engrossing 
you  in  the  handling  of  it  that  you  forget  the  scene  on 
which  it  is  dependent  and  are  without  curiosity  as.  to 
the  scene  which  is  to  come.  But  he  has  pages  which 
never  cloy,  from  which  the  last  drops  of  beauty  will 
never  be  wrung.  Read  the  passage  beginning  "Des 
femmes  nonchalamment  assises  dans  les  caleches."  Isn't 
this  our  Paris,  our  very  own  Paris,  Paris  in  our  moods, 
never  mind  hers  ?  Balzac  had  no  time  for  such  a  sen- 
tence as  "Madame  Vatnaz  mangea  a  elle  seule  le  buisson 


226  RESPONSIBILITY 

d'ecrevisses,  et  les  carapaces  sonnaient  sous  ses  longues 

dents." 

I  suppose  the  book  is  what  stupid  people  would  call 
a  sermon.  Certainly  I  do  not  know  how  any  man  is 
going  to  take  to  himself  a  mistress  other  than  cynically 
after  reading  the  account  of  Frederic's  waning  passion 
for  Kosanette.  Ses  paroles,  sa  voix,  son  sourire,  tout 
vint  a  lui  deplaire,  ses  regards  surtout,  cet  ceil  de  femme 
etemellment  limpide  et  inepte,  mais  un  gout  des  sens 
dpre  et  bestial  V  entrainaii  vers  elle,  illusions  d'une 
minute  qui  se  resolvaient  en  haine.  It's  as  discourag- 
ing as  the  major  prophets !  Neither  Balzac  nor  Flau- 
bert are  "good  for  people  to  read."  The  one  excites 
to  madness,  the  other  drugs  to  indifference.  I  some- 
times wonder  whether  other  people  besides  ourselves 
make  more  account  of  books  than  of  life.  Are  we  ab- 
normal ?  I  swear  that  Balzac  has  destroyed  every  ves- 
tige of  any  moral  sense  I  ever  possessed.  This  is  not  the 
same  thing  as  saying  that  he  is  immoral,  but  rather 
that  he  unfits  you  for  the  humdrum  of  life.  What  do 
I  care  for  anything  that  can  happen  to  me  at  Shuffle- 
bottom's  Cross  so  long  as  I  have  the  surge  and  surf  of 
the  great  Pandemonium  in  my  ears?  Enough  for  to- 
night. Je  te  laisse  pour  la  Marechale.  Elle  est  en- 
ceinte. 

•  •••••• 

Le  boulevard  Croix  de  Shufflebottom  avec  ses  lu- 
mieres,  ses  splendeurs,  le  va-et-vient  de  ses  riches  equi- 
pages, ses  femmes  etincelantes  nonchalamment  assises 
dans  les  caleches,  ses  lions  (ah,  voila  Monsieur  le  Vir 
comte  Wally  de  Buckley  dans  le  four-wheeler  de  Ma- 
dame la  Marquise  de  Runelles,  nee  Runnel  tout  court) . 
C'est  la,  mon  cher,  la  vie  telle  que  nous  Vavons  revee. 
Cet  hotel-la,  le  numero  vingt,  entoure  de  toutes  ces 


RESPONSIBILITY  227 

richesses,  rnerite  d'etre  connu.  La  les  diners  superbes, 
le  mutton-chop  ou  le  rump-steak  suivi  d'une  bribe  de 
fromage  dit  Cheshire,  le  Bass  a  perdre  la  raison,  les 
cigares  a  quatre  sous.  La  rien  de  vulgaire,  rien  de 
bourgeois,  rien  de  commun.  Les  conversations  sur  la 
Utterature,  la  peinture,  la  musique;  les  reunions  d' ar- 
tistes, les  causeries  spirituelles  et  les  fines  debauches — 
un  salon,  quoif  Mais  sur  le  boulevard,  c'est  autre 
chose.  La,  la  joule  vomie  des  usines,  des  workshops, 
des  mille  endroits  oil  Von  gagne  ce  qu'on  appellc  le 
spending-brass,  la  foide  infecte  parade  dans  les  rues 
puantes.  La,  on  sent  le  fried-fish  et  les  chips.  La,  on 
entend  les  Chase-me!  des  gens  a  shawl.  Quand  vient 
la  nuit  on  frole  Vamour  impudique,  derme  de 
poesie.  .  .  . 

Last  night  I  had  the  temerity  to  draw  my  weary 
bones  to  the  theatre,  unable  to  resist  the  promise  of 
Aspasia,  Adapted  from  the  famous  French  Novel  of 
that  name.  The  hoardings  foretold  A  Picture  of  Night 
Life  in  Paris.  It  would  have  been  indecent  if  it  had 
not  been  farcical.  Never  have  I  seen  the  Lancashire 
atmosphere  so  well  put  on  the  stage  as  in  this  art- 
less reaching  out  after  the  French.  The  thing  began 
with  a  Bal-musque  (sic)  of  which  the  principal  figure 
was  one  calling  herself  "La  Pipotte — a  loose  woman." 
Aspasia  herself  reminded  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  a 
fifth-rate  Polly  Eccles.  She  was  enormous.  She  ap- 
peared at  the  top  of  a  rickety  staircase  crowned  with 
a  wreath  of  red  paper  roses  with  the  device  "Vive 
l'Amoor!"  (sic).  She  wore  red  tights  and  a  leopard 
skin  with  lace  insertions,  the  whole  surmounted  by 
a  feather  "boa."  Hoisted  on  to  a  wooden  stool  she 
recited  a  poem  in  praise  of  love,  after  which  the  orgy 
began,  the  scent  of  the  crowd's  Wild  Woodbines  lend- 


228  RESPONSIBILITY 

ing  additional  charm  to  the  tourbillon  de  la  da/nse.  To 
use  the  word  "crude"  in  connection  with  the  spoken 
lines  is  to  expose  the  poverty  of  the  English  language. 
I  cite  a  gem  or  two. 

"Ah,  Aspasia,  there's  a  woman  for  you!  What 
arms,  what  legs,  what  a  chest!" 

"Frailty  thy  name  is  Aspasia.  What  man  has  ever 
possessed  thee  for  more  than  a  fortnight  at  a  stretch!" 

And  then  the  lover  breaking  out  in  allusion  to  the 
infant  mewling  and  puking  in  the  earlier  scenes. 

"Is  that  bastard  brat,  fruit  of  your  sold  body,  to 
stick  for  ever  in  my  gills?" 

Whereat  Shuffiebottom's  Cross  whole-heartedly  to  ap- 
plaud.    More  life-force,  you  see. 

There  were  other  incredible  things  in  connection 
with  the  performance.  My  neighbour  in  the  eighteen- 
penny  stalls  spent  the  intervals  and  part  of  the  play 
itself  in  reading  Lessing's  Dramaturgic  in  German. 
The  pianist,  tiring  of  trumpery  waltz-tunes,  struck  into 
a  Brahm's  Intermezzo,  and  once  the  monstrous  Aspasia 
said  in  tolerable  French  "Que  la  vie  de  province  est 
done  triste" ! 

La  piece  terminee,  on  descend  la  rue  a  present  desert e. 
Uivrogne  se  hate  dialler  prodiguer  chez  sa  chere  epouse 
les  tendresses  provoquees  par  le  bottled  stout.  Deux 
chats,  un  bobby  et  des  amour eux  tardifs,  voila  tout  ce 
qui  reste  debout.  Les  one-up-and-one-down,  les  villas, 
les  semi-detached  enferment  la  population  honnete  et 
abrutie.  Allons,  mon  cher,  montons  le  boulevard  Croix 
de  Shufflebottom.  On  a  beau  chercher  les  equipages,  les 
belles,  les  dandys.  Jje  Vicomte  Wally  de  Buckley 
est  depuis  longtemps  couche.  II  a  son  bellyful  du  Pale 
Ale.  II  pousse  des  hoquets,  sans  doute.  Que  Voir  de 
sa  chambre  doit  etre  lourd  et  sa  tete  glabre  sur  Voreiller 


RESPONSIBILITY  229 

horrible  a  voir.  .  .  .  On  cherche  son  latch-key,  et  on 
entre  chez  sot.  Dieu!  que  la  vie  de  province  est  done 
triste.  .    .    . 

§vii 

Letters  such  as  this  were  unsettling.  Insensibly 
I  be^an  to  take  less  interest  in  things  which  were  not 
between  the  covers  of  books.  I  drifted  further  and 
further  from  my  familv  and  Monica.  I  think  now 
that  I  must  have  neglected  her  shamefully,  although 
I  did  from  time  to  time  make  an  effort  to  keep  in 
touch  with  her.  But  in  any  case  my  neglect  was  not 
worse  than  her  parents'.  I  have  often  wondered  what 
fathers  and  mothers  thought  about  their  daughters  in 
those  days,  and  I  am  reduced  to  the  belief  that  they 
did  not  think  about  them  at  all.  A  little  music,  a 
little  needlework,  a  little  painting  in  water  colour — 
"a  little"  was  the  measure  of  the  period.  At  nineteen 
or  thereabouts  the  half-educated,  wholly  ignorant  fu- 
ture mothers  of  the  race  put  up  their  hair  and  ''came 
out."  That  is  to  say  they  attended  some  scores  of 
dances  and  informed  some  hundreds  of  young  men 
that  thev  were  fond  of  "a  little"  music  and  "liked" 
concerts.  And  every  year  a  certain  number  of  them 
took  to  themselves  indifferently  a  houseful  of  furniture, 
a  husband  and  some  eleventh-hour  intimations.  Those 
who  did  not  marry?  For  them  the  most  pathetic 
destiny  in  the  world,  the  destiny  of  the  human  being 
which  has  not  fulfilled  its  purpose.  But  Monica  did 
not  bother  her  pretty  head  about  destiny  and  it  is 
true  that  very  few  young  men  came  to  Oakwood. 
Geoffrey  had  no  friends  and  Claud  on  his  one  and  only 
visit  quarrelled  violently  with  my  uncle  on  the  subject 
of  English   Opera,   indulgence   in  which   Claud   pro- 


230  RESPONSIBILITY 

claimed  to  be  a  vice.  Of  Ransom,  who  had  been  an 
occasional  visitor,  we  still  heard  nothing,  and  the  only 
others  who  came  near  us  were  Westrom  and  Reinecke. 
Westrom  was  tolerated  because  he  was  married,  Curt 
because  my  uncle  hoped  to  glean  from  him  some  par- 
ticulars about  Strumbach's  affairs.  When  Monica'3 
education  or  what  passed  for  it  was  finished  she  de- 
voted herself  with  that  quiet  determination  which  she 
inherited  from  her  father  to  beautiful  and  unostenta- 
tious work  among  the  poor  of  the  parish,  with  such 
quiet  effect  that  even  her  proteges  thought  well  of  her. 
In  the  early  part  of  December  Clare  told  me  that 
she  had  found  evening  work — she  would  not  specify  its 
nature — and  that  henceforth  we  should  only  be  able 
to  meet  on  Sundays.  Anyone  who  knows  the  nature 
of  Sunday  evening  in  the  bosom  of  a  provincial  family 
will  realise  that  this  meant  for  me  embarkation  upon  a 
mean  and  dexterous  campaign  of  petty  lying.  I  must 
admit  that  I  managed  the  hateful  business  with  fair 
success.  Now  one  of  the  most  formal  of  family  festivals 
in  those  days  was  the  annual  visit  to  the  Christmas 
pantomime,  and  in  my  uncle's  family  the  rite  was  well 
established.  A  few  days  before  Christmas  my  aunt 
at  breakfast  would  call  for  the  morning  paper  and 
wonder  audibly  what  the  pantomime  was  going  to  be 
like.  Geoffrey  and  I  would  wonder  too,  and  Monica 
would  be  quite  sure  that  it  was  going  to  be  a  great 
deal  better  than  the  previous  year's.  After  a  reason- 
able amount  of  badgering  my  uncle  would  consent  to 
the  principle  of  a  visit  and  my  aunt  would  stipulate 
for  stalls,  fourth  row  and  near  the  door,  in  case  she 
should  feel  faint.  After  the  return  from  the  theatre 
there  would  be  supper  with  a  glass  of  champagne  to 
mark  the  occasion,  and  my  uncle  would  descant  on 


RESPONSIBILITY  231 

the  merits  of  the  principal  boy,  my  aunt  on  those  of 
the  dresses,  and  the  rest  of  us  on  the  low  comedians. 
On  this  year's  occasion  I  sat  between  my  aunt  and 
Monica.  After  the  first  bantering  exchanges  between 
a  gentlemanly  devil  of  uncertain  temper  and  a  grand- 
motherly benefactress-in-chief  the  drop  went  up  for 
the  first  big  set — the  market-place  at  Baghdad.  And 
there,  in  the  foremost  corner  of  the  scene,  with  her 
hair  in  a  pig-tail,  her  eyes  artificially  lengthened  and 
her  little  feet  thrust  into  tiny  satin  slippers  stood  my 
Clare  in  the  likeness  of  a  Chinese  boy.  I  asked  my 
aunt  for  the  glasses  and  my  hand  trembled  so  violently 
that  I  could  hardly  hold  them.  Monica  dropped  her 
glove  and  as  we  both  bent  down  she  whispered :  "Take 
care,  Ned ;  mother's  noticing." 

So  this  was  Clare's  evening  work!  As  I  watched 
her  little  figure  bend  and  sway  to  the  common  lilt  of 
the  music,  as  I  thrilled  to  her  succeeding  incarnations, 
daintiest  of  horn-pipers,  Riviera  rose,  white  pearl  of 
the  Pacific,  I  knew  that  I  was  insanely  jealous  of  the 
coarse  contacts  of  the  stage.  It  was  kind  of  Fate  that 
it  should  be  a  Saturday  evening  and  that  I  had  there- 
fore only  one  sleepless  night  before  my  impassioned 
protest. 

"But  I  can't  give  it  up,  Ned  dear,"  she  replied. 
"It's  thirty  shillings  a  week  regular,  more  than  ever 
I've  earned  before.     And  I  want  the  money." 

Her  eyes  had  the  stubborn  look  in  them  which  I 
knew  well. 

"You  shall  have  two  pounds  for  every  week  it  lasts," 
I  said  bluntly. 

"I  can't  take  it,  Ned,  I  can't  indeed,  and  it's  no  use 
talking." 

I  do  not  contemplate  a  long  account  of  that  winter; 


232  RESPONSIBILITY 

I  imagine  that  there  is  little  that  is  new  in  the  theme 
men  call  infatuation.  Enough  that  the  dingy  block 
of  stone  with  its  insufficient  foyer,  its  meagre  staircase, 
its  photographs  of  Wilson  Barrett  as  a  decollete  Hamlet, 
its  faded  reminiscences  of  simpering  beauties  long  in 
their  graves  became  for  me  a  palace  of  delight.  I 
learned  to  bribe  doorkeepers  and  was  initiated  into 
many  tawdry  mysteries.  I  became  involved  in  trivial 
rivalries  and  preposterous  jealousies,  discovered  the 
infinite  niceties  of  theatrical  grading.  I  will  say  this 
for  Clare — but  what  good  thing  might  not  I  always 
have  said  of  her? — that  she  indulged  in  none. of  those 
calculated  waywardness  and  artificial  comings-on 
which  are  the  bane  of  that  insincere  world.  I  used 
to  lift  her  face  to  the  wan  light  of  the  door-lamp  and 
never  did  I  see  on  it  trace  of  the  hateful  stage-paint. 
She  would  scrub  her  cheek  with  her  handkerchief  for 
proof,  and  always  she  put  up  her  mouth  as  innocently 
as  a  child.  How  pretty  I  found  the  little  phrases  she 
learnt  from  the  other  girls,  how  quaintly,  and  how 
trippingly  they  came  from  her  lips.  Did  I  insist  upon 
accompanying  her  beyond  the  prescribed  street-end. 
"Want  will  have  to  be  your  master,"  she  would  say. 
Or  when  I  gave  her  some  little  thing,  "Your  kindness 
exceeds  your  beauty."  Or  if  I  doubted  her  affection: 
"I  don't  love  you,  do  I?  Not  till  I  start!"  These 
little  commonnesses,  the  staple  of  the  chorus  girl's 
wit,  did  not  jar  on  me  then.  I  used  to  turn  each 
phrase  over  lingeringly  and  find  evidence  of  a  dainty, 
personal  wit. 

Shortly  before  Easter  the  run  of  the  pantomime 
finished,  and  on  Easter  Monday  after  a  thousand  diffi- 
culties valiantly  overcome  I  succeeded  in  persuading 
Clare  to  make  a  little  excursion  to  the  sea.     "For  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  233 

day,"  was  straightforwardly  stipulated  and  conceded. 
It  was  a  gorgeous  morning.  Leader-writers  who  are 
accustomed  to  put  a  bright  face  on  their  readers' 
poverty  could  honestly  console  such  of  them  as  had 
been  unable  to  afford  to  leave  their  homes  with  riotous 
stories  of  daffodils  coming  before  the  swallow  dares, 
of  crocuses  blossoming  on  the  window-ledge,  with  the 
whole  philosophy  of  inexpensive  content.  Clare  and  I 
sat  on  the  beach  with  the  wind  in  our  faces  and  the 
salt  on  our  lips.  I  suppose  there  is  no  simple  common- 
place to  which  we  did  not  give  expression,  though  I 
swear  I  did  not  make  use  of  any  of  the  customary  and 
time-honoured  wiles.  I  told  her  that  she  was  part 
of  the  salt  wind,  the  dancing  waves,  the  light-footed  sun- 
shine. I  remember  catching  myself  up  at  the  hackneyed 
word  and  substituting  something  rarer.  I  rang  the 
changes  on  the  well-worn  theme  of  Jessica  and  Lorenzo, 
and  told  her  of  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Dido  and  iEneas, 
Antony  and  Cleopatra  and  half  a  score  of  royal  lovers 
whose  meagre  passions  I  compared  unfavourably  with 
our  own. 

"It's  a  pity  about  them,  isn't  it?"  said  Clare,  and 
for  the  first  time  I  noticed  that  the  phrase  was  one 
which  she  had  used  on  a  hundred  occasions.  Suddenly 
she  looked  up  at  me:  "Do  you  think  I  dance  well, 
Ned?" 

"I  never  thought  about  your  dancing,  dear." 

"Splender,  the  agent,  wants  me  to  join  the  troupe 
for  Brussels  this  summer." 

"You're  not  going,  sweetheart." 

"It's  two-ten  a  week." 

"I  don't  care  if  it's  twelve-ten,"  I  declared,  "you're 
not  going." 

"It's  a  pity  about  Splender,  isn't  it?"  she  rejoined, 


234  RESPONSIBILITY 

and  then  nestled  more  closely  to  me.  "Kemember, 
Ned,  I  shall  be  a  responsibility." 

I  think  we  both  knew  that  the  farce  of  pretending 
not  to  care  passionately  for  each  other  was  at  an  end. 
We  made  a  pretence  of  going  to  the  station.  As  we 
watched  the  train  go  slowly  out :  "They'll  wonder  what 
has  become  of  you/'  I  said. 

"Wonder  will  have  to  be  their  master/'  she  laughed. 

Again  the  summer  and  again  a  season  of  pure  delight. 
Together  we  endeavoured  to  keep  up  the  fine  strain. 
Together  we  sought  the  simple  delights  and  interests 
of  the  provincial  town — a  poor  catalogue  indeed.  Trim 
parks,  valetudinarians,  beds  of  formal  geraniums,  chil- 
dren at  play  in  city  gardens,  little  friendships  that 
endure  for  a  summer.  Rides  on  the  tops  of  golden 
tramcars  leading  straight  into  the  sunset.  Long  Satur- 
day afternoons  in  the  Art  Gallery.  Here  I  would  try 
to  explain  why  a  picture  of  a  tramp  with  bleeding  feet 
and  a  mother  giving  suck  under  a  hedge  is  not  neces- 
sarily great  art,  and  failing  signally.  I  would  be  un- 
able to  tear  Clare  away  from  the  picture  of  a  grave 
and  bearded  doctor  who  watches  the  ebbing  of  a  little 
life.  The  sad,  pale  face  of  an  emigrant  with  his  gaze 
on  receding  England  would  set  my  girl  weeping,  and 
the  tiny  hand  of  the  babe  under  the  mother's  shawl  move 
her  to  a  storm.  And  again  I  would  try  to  inculcate 
the  principle  that  pictures  must  not  tell  stories.  And 
again  I  would  fail. 

"I  don't  understand  a  bit,"  she  would  say.  "You 
want  a  thing  to  look  beautiful  and  I  want  it  to  he 
beautiful.  You  want  it  to  look  true  and  I  want  it  to 
be  true.  It  must  be  a  terrible  thing  to  lose  a  child 
even  though  you  can't  afford  to  keep  it,  and  a  terrible 


RESPONSIBILITY  235 

thing  to  have  no  boots  and  to  be  cold  and  hungry.  But 
I  suppose  you  have  never  been  cold  and  hungry." 

And  yet  she  had  a  fine  sense  of  what  I  should  like 
to  call  the  tall  in  order  of  emotion.  There  used  to 
hang  in  the  gallery — I  do  not  know  whether  it  hangs 
there  still — the  picture  of  an  opulent-bosomed  woman 
watching  with  filling  eyes  the  drowning  of  her  lover. 

"It's  a  pity  about  her,"  Clare  would  remark  and 
pass  contemptuously  on. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  was  that  she  was  a  perfectly 
honest  little  savage  who  had  never  heard  of  art-criticism 
and  had  no  belief  in  its  jurisdiction.  She  would  argue 
that  the  painter  had  no  belief  in  his  disconsolate  young 
woman  with  the  eyes  like  saucers.  Hers  was  a  limited 
experience  of  life,  but  it  had  been  a  very  definite 
one.  She  would  not  go  beyond  her  experience,  and 
she  would  not  take  less  than  experience.  In  addition 
to  being  a  savage  she  was  a  relentless  and  inveterate 
realist.  In  vain  I  tried  to  explain  to  her  that  an  ex- 
quisite Madonna  and  Child  might  be  thrown  off  by  an 
irreligious  painter,  and  the  most  heart-rending  portrayal 
of  poverty  emanate  from  a  dilettante  who  would  cut 
a  beggar  across  the  face. 

"The  pictures  would  be  lies,"  said  Clare. 

"All  art  is  a  lie,  or  at  least  a  fiction,"  I  was  con- 
strained to  answer. 

"What's  the  difference  ?"  she  asked. 

In  the  theatre  we  did  not  venture  much  farther 
afield  than  the  distressful  heroes  and  heroines  of  melo- 
drama, the  tender  unrealities  of  Sweet  Lavender  and 
the  Berlin-wool  tragedies  of  the  Kendals.  But  whereas 
picture  galleries  are  the  recognised  meeting-place  for 
clandestine  lovers  the  better  theatres  are  by  no  means 
safe.     There  even  Strumbach  did  not  disdain  to  air  his 


236  RESPONSIBILITY 

importance,  nor  his  hook-nosed  wife  her  diamonds. 
I  was  never  sure  of  not  being  recognised  by  some  of  my 
uncle's  customers  and  often  Clare  and  I  found  ourselves 
condemned  to  sit  in  different  parts  of  the  house  and 
exchange  signals  of  intelligence.  But  there  came  a 
never-to-be-forgotten  evening  when  we  took  our  courage 
in  both  hands  and  cowered  together  in  the  pit.  I  had 
badly  wanted  my  girl  to  see  a  great  French  actress  in 
one  of  her  famous  bundles  of  emotion.  The  play  had 
fragrance  twenty  years  ago,  has  fragrance  still — the 
faint,  sweet  pestilence  of  the  embalmed.  The  actress 
was  old,  and  the  casket  enshrining  imperishable  art — 
to  put  it  brutally,  her  body — was  lacquered  and  gilded 
to  the  semblance  of  life.  You  could  have  taken  her 
gowns  for  cerements. 

"Oh,  she's  old !"  cried  Clare  in  a  burst  of  disappoint- 
ment. 

And  then  both  play  and  player  took  hold  of  her,  as 
they  have  taken  hold  of  generations  of  playgoers.  I 
had  coached  her  in  every  line  of  every  scene  and  every 
word  of  every  line  so  that  she  was  at  least  sense-perfect. 
The  uncomplicated  psychology  of  the  play  was  still 
too  complicated  for  this  fiercely  honest  little  soul. 
The  poor  troll  in  the  street  she  could  understand,  but 
not  the  luxurious  courtesan  with  enough  to  eat.  Come 
to  think  of  it,  the  sentimental  harlot  is  not  easily  within 
the  scope  of  the  single-minded.  But  the  minor  suc- 
cesses, the  clever  little  tricks  with  which  the  play 
bristles,  came  easily  and  triumphantly  off.  The  unre- 
warded lover  sitting  all  night  at  the  bedside  and  replen- 
ishing the  empty  coffers,  Bichette,  that  pious  little 
goose,  Marguerite's  wistful  fingering  of  the  bridal  veil, 
her  pitiful  attempts  to  walk,  the  child  in  her  calling  to 
the  child  at  play  in  the  street,  all  this  outmoded  senti- 


RESPONSIBILITY  237 

ment  uprooted  Clare  and  dashed  her  ahout  as  in  a 
storm.  Even  her  familiar  phrases  failed  her.  That 
night  we  walked  slowly  towards  the  little  slum  which 
was  Clare's  home.  After  infinite  hesitations  and  diffi- 
dences and  plain  flat  refusals  I  had  made  good  my 
right  to  accompany  her  as  far  as  the  end  of  the.  street 
in  which  she  lived.  There  I  was  allowed  to  watch  her 
as  she  went  up  two  stone  steps  that  led  to  a  doorway. 
She  would  stand  framed  for  a  second  and  wave  her 
hand.  As  we  stood  together  that  night  she  said:  "I 
wonder,  'Ned,  whether  you  would  sit  the  fire  out  for 
me  ?    That  is  if  I  had  any  fire  to  sit  out." 

"Of  course,  dear,"  I  answered,  thinking  of  the 
glamour  we  had  left  and  wondering  why  life  is  never 
as  exquisite  as  its  portrayal. 

"I  wish  you  meant  it,"  she  said,  and  was  gone. 

§  viii 

And  then  Geoffrey  got  married. 

The  hride  was  a  Miss  Pratt,  one  of  the  Pratts  of 
Dukinfield,  a  mild  and  colourless  person  peering  ador- 
ingly at  her  lover  through  gold-rimmed  glasses.  I  spent 
the  day  trying  to  reconcile  pince-nez  with  orange- 
blossom  and  Geoffrey's  puce-coloured  trousers  and 
lavender  waistcoat  with  his  mauve  tie  and  violet  cloves. 
There  was  an  air  of  pluming  and  preening  ahout  him 
which  displeased  me,  and  do  what  I  would  I  could 
not  get  out  of  my  head  some  simile  of  a  burnished 
goose.  I  had  been  pressed  into  service  as  best  man 
and  my  greatest  difficulty  was  to  subdue  the  familiar 
whistle  whilst  we  waited  for  the  bride.  I  think  the 
fellow  would  have  piped  to  execution.  At  the  church. 
I  met  Eodd  and  snatched  a  moment's  talk. 

"Didn't  think  you  knew  'em,"  I  hazarded. 


238  RESPONSIBILITY 

"I  don't,  but  I  get  a  guinea  for  'doing'  'em  for  a 
local  rag.  I'm  coming  on  to  the  house.  Do  you  think 
if  I'm  jolly  with  the  servants  they'll  give  me  a  glass 
of  champagne?" 

My  recollection  of  the  day  is  of  a  jumble  of  well- 
intentioned  heartinesses,  of  chatter  about  fish-slices  and 
serviette-rings.  I  have  visions  of  my  aunt,  dignified; 
of  Monica  patient  and  cheerful  in  the  hullabaloo; 
of  my  uncle  benevolent,  partriarchal  and  slightly 
satirical.  He  was  polite  to  Ruth,  the  chaste  object  of 
his  son's  choice,  and  I  fancied  faintly  goguenard 
towards  her  parents.  The  pair  departed  with  bicycles 
on  the  carriage  roof;  the  bride  wearing  a  toque  con- 
fectioned in  foreign  parts,  modish  and  out  of  place 
above  that  startled  countenance;  the  bridegroom 
swathed  in  an  Inverness  cape  and  surmounted  by  a 
plaid  contrivance  with  ear-flaps. 

They  were  for  Paris  and  were  to  cycle  from  Bou- 
logne. 

After  a  considerable  amount  of  eating  and  drink- 
ing a  huge  party  was  made  up  to  witness  some  dull, 
outrageous  farce.  On  the  way  back  I  drove  alone  with 
Monica. 

"Ned,  dear,"  she  said,  "there's  something  I've  wanted 
to  tell  vou  for  a  long  time.  I  haven't  liked  to  write 
and  you  see  you  are  hardly  ever  at  home." 

"Yes,  Monica?" 

"It's  about  Clare,  I  think  she's  called.  I  want  to 
tell  you  that  father  knows  about  her.  I  think  he  has 
found  letters  or  made  inquiries." 

I  said  nothing. 

"If  there's  anything  I  can  do  to  help  you,  you'll 
tell  me.  ...  I  hope  she's  a  good  girl.  I  mean  I 
hope  she  loves  you,   and  that  you  are  not  throwing 


RESPONSIBILITY  239 

yourself  away.  ...  Of  course  I'm  just  a  wee  bit 
disappointed,  ISTed;  you  see  you  haven't  confided  in 
me  this  time.  Love  is  a  very  wonderful  thing  and  it 
seems  to  happen  to  you  too  easily.  I  am  sometimes 
afraid  you  are  not  going  to  be  a  happy  man." 

§ix 

A  few  days  later  I  received  the  following  from 
Claud : — 

I've  been  and  gone  and  done  it ! 

Hoo-ray ! 

In  this  manner. 

I  have  not  concealed  from  you,  my  dear  Ned,  that 
all  those  delectable  morsels  of  tinned-tongue,  finnan- 
haddock,  Yarmouth  bloater  and  food-stuffs  in  which 
there  is  no  waste — vital  consideration  for  the  .pauper 
— and  which  have  hitherto  kept  this  body  and  soul 
together,  have  been  the  reward  of  the  vilest  occupation 
except  one  to  which  man  can  put  his  hand.  That 
utterly  vilest  is  to  give  lessons  on  the  piano.  Had  I 
been  counsel  for  the  Marquis  de  Sade  I  would  have 
alleged  that  his  victims  were  the  confirmed  little  mur- 
derers and  murderesses  of — whatever  beastly  sonatas 
were  then  in  vogue. 

Once  more  I've  been  and  gone  and  done  it. 

I  stood  out  for  as  long  as  was  humanly  possible 
against  this  basest  of  metiers,  but  one  cannot  go  on 
owing  fourteen  weeks'  rent  for  ever.  So  yesterday  I 
capitulated.    "Shall  we  fall  foul  for  toys  ?" 

During  the  morning  there  came  in  unto  me  a  person 
of  fashion,  Crawley  Bridge's  latest,  or  what  Paris  wore 
in  '70  during  the  bombardment. 


240  RESPONSIBILITY 

"I  understand,  young  man,  that  you  give  music 
lessons,"  said  this  personage. 

Oh,  she  spoke  deferentially  enough;  it's  her  class 
which  is  offensive.  After  their  manner  she  began  to 
star  at  me  through  eyeglasses  fastened  on  the  end  of 
a  stick,  an  insolence  which  always  makes  me  furious. 
Whereupon  your  servant,  in  the  devil's  mood  that 
morning,  whipped  out  a  magnifying  glass  about  a  foot 
across  and  spied  at  her  in  return. 

"That  depends,  ma'am!''  I  answered. 

"On  w"hat,  young  man?" 

"My  pleasure  at  the  moment,  principally.  But  also," 
I  added,  "on  your  references,  and  the  degree  to  which 
your  daughter  pleases  me,  and  whether  your  piano 
is  a  good  one." 

"Our  piano,"  replied  the  astonishing  female,  "is  a 
grand." 

"What  make,  madam  ?" 

"The  make  is  immaterial.  My  husband  gave  two 
hundred  guineas  for  it." 

"Then,"  I  replied,  "I  will  teach  your  offspring  to 
draw  such  tones  from  it  as  will  make  you  wish  she 
had  never  been  born.  Three  guineas  the  course,  my 
good  woman,  counting  thirteen  lessons  as  twelve." 

I  assure  you,  Ned,  I  was  not  drunk,  merely  a  little 
above  myself.  The  artist  has  this  revenge  over  the 
bourgeois,  that  he  is  possessed  of  an  extra  dimension, 
the  dimension  of  impertinence.  The  bourgeois  do  not 
perceive  that  you  are  being  rude  to  them  any  more  than 
people  who  can  be  conceived  as  living  on  a  perfectly 
flat  plane  can  be  conscious  of  men  and  trees  walking. 
That  woman,  for  instance,  has  exactly  the  same  percep- 
tion of  me  as  a  paving-stone  has  of  the  sole  of  my  foot. 
•     I  turned  up  in  the  evening  at  Acacia  or  Azalea  or 


RESPONSIBILITY  241 

Auricaria  Villas,  or  whatever  its  beastly  name  is.  There 
I  was  presented  to  an  ill-mannered  little  brat  with 
two  plaits  sitting  on  a  stool  with  her  back  to  what  I 
took  to  be  "the  grand,"  although  it  looked  more  like 
a  bier  which  had  been  covered  with  a  velvet  pall  and 
a  few  thousand  portraits  of  the  deceased.  Slowly  the 
child  swung  round  to  the  piano  and  slowly  licked  from 
the  ends  of  her  fingers  the  remains  of  a  sticky  tea. 
I  asked  her  what  studies  she  had  used. 

"Them  in  the  green  cover,"  she  replied. 

And  here,  Ned,  comes  the  horror  of  it.  In  my  rage 
I  knocked  the  little  beast  headlong  into  her  mother's 
lap  and  the  stool  through  the  Trench  window. 

Of  course  it  means  the  end  of  Claud  Eodd  so  far  as 
Crawley  Bridge  is  concerned.  Farewell  the  Boulevard 
Croix  de  Skufflebottom,  Numero  Vingt,  or  any  other 
number. 

I'm  off  to  London  town. 

"Into  the  dark  to  fight  a  giant." 

And  now,  my  illustrious  de  Marsay,  toi  qui  entretiens 
des  danseuses,  I  bid  you  give  heed  to  this  my  prayer, 
though  it  be  not  writ  on  the  fair  vellum  of  the  Jockey 
Club  and  the  writer  bear  for  all  arms  a  Beggar  couchant 
on  dreams  silver,  never  to  be  realised.  I  have  confided 
to  my  uncle's  care — let  me  say  frankly  that  I  have 
pawned — all  those  innumerable  statues,  pictures,  snuff- 
boxes, ivories,  rare  editions  which  were  our  common 
pride.  My  remainder  fortune  consists  of  the  green 
waistcoat  with  the  red  and  yellow  bees.  That  was 
ever  too  extraordinary  a  find  for  the  provinces;  it 
may  make  my  name  in  London. 

Would  ten  pounds  .    .    .  ? 

Let  me  lighten  your  darkness  with  a  last  mot.  Le 
Marquis  Wally  de  Buckley — en  voila  un  qui  fera  son 


242  RESPONSIBILITY 

chemin — having  contracted  an  alliance  with  an  heiress, 
one  Susanne  de  Pickersgill,  was  overheard  in  the  foyer 
of  Crawley's  theatre  to  exclaim:  "Marriage  is  aw 
reet  in  its  way,  but  it's  a  poor  do  for  them  as  thinks 
life  should  be  all  beer  and  skittles." 

Le  mot  a  courru  dans  la  salle. 

In  notes,  please. 

Aimez  toujours 

Votre  pauvre  Rodd. 

The  waning  of  my  affection  for  Clare  dates  from  the 
time  when  I  conceived  my  first  book.  I  have  never 
been  one  of  those  complicated  persons  who  can  keep 
two  interests  going  at  once,  and  with  me  writing  had 
begun  to  be  the  grand  passion.  Conceal  the  change  as  I 
might — and  after  a  time  all  concealment  becomes  per- 
functory— I  felt  sure  that  Clare  noticed  it.  One  day 
she  said  suddenly:  "Mother  wants  to  see  you.  She  says 
will  you  please  call  on  her  to-morrow  evening.  I  think 
you'll  have  to,  Ned." 

Times  without  number  I  had  tried  to  forecast  this 
inevitable  meeting,  to  arrive  at  some  idea  of  any  pos- 
sible mother  of  Clare's,  to  devise  some  formula  that 
should  carry  me  through.  Steeped  as  I  was  in  the 
world  of  books,  I  had  arrived  at  a  figure  of  which 
Madame  Cardinal  and  Mrs  Nickleby  were  the  chief 
components.  Or  say  some  loud-voiced,  authoritative 
keeper  of  a  registry  office  for  domestic  servants,  some 
dealer  in  discarded  wardrobes,  some  preposterous  in- 
carnation in  widow's  weeds,  some  Gadgett  in  distress. 
I  had  been  prepared  for  the  battered  charwoman,  the 
faded  seamstress,  the  remnant  of  better  days.  But  I 
was  not  prepared  for  the  entirely  self-possessed  and 


RESPONSIBILITY  243 

dignified  figure  who  to  receive  me  did  not  move  from 
her  chair  in  the  window.  By  the  fading  light  I  could 
see  that  she  was  dressed  poorly  but  with  scrupulous 
neatness,  that  her  hair  was  grey  and  her  hands  small, 
fine  and  white.  She  was  very  busy  with  some  sewing 
which,  I  was  quick  to  note,  had  no  connection  with  that 
classic  sentimentality,  the  "little,  little  things." 

"So  you  are  my  daughter's  choice,"  the  old  lady 
said  slowly,  motioning  me  to  a  chair.  And  then  com- 
mandingly:  "Sit  down,  sir,  and  let  me  have  a  look 
at  you." 

It  cannot  have  been  a  particularly  gallant  figure 
that  I  made  in  Clare's  grey  eyes  and  before  her  mother's 
steady  gaze. 

"When  I  say  my  daughter's  choice,  Mr  Marston,  I 
mean  that  she  chose  you  to  her  ultimate  unhappiness. 
You  need  not  be  afraid  that  I  shall  try  to  persuade 
you  to  do  something  you  have  never  contemplated. 
I  am  not  talking  about  marriage.  I  do  not  for  one 
moment  imagine  that  you  are  a  fool  or  even  a  senti- 
mentalist except  in  the  selfish  sense.  You  will  not 
run  counter  to  the  prejudices  of  your  class.  But  you 
must  not  imagine  that  I  am  a  fool  either.  Please  do 
not  confound  me  with  my  circumstances.  Everything 
you  see  about  me  is  faded;  even  my  hopes  in  Clare 
are  faded  as  my  mother's  were  in  me.  My  daughter 
knows  that  I  was  never  married  and  that  in  all  prob- 
ability neither  will  she  ever  be.  Both  she  and  I  see 
this  clearly ;  we  are  neither  of  us  deceived." 

She  paused  while  her  hands  moved  restlessly  one 
over  the  other. 

"Mr  Marston,  I  have  sat  here  in  this  room  sewing, 
sewing,  sewing  and  waiting  for  Clare  evening  after 
evening  for  many  months,  and  I  know  what  is  in  my 


244  RESPONSIBILITY 

mind  to  say  to  you.  I  am  merely  repeating  a  lesson 
all  these  long  months  have  taught.  I  believe  you  to  be 
an  honest,  good-natured  fellow,  well-intentioned  and 
perhaps  not  altogether  weak.  You  have  been  good  to 
my  girl  in  your  way  and  after  your  education  and 
tradition,  and  I  have  no  doubt  you  would  always  be- 
have handsomely.  I  believe  that  is  the  accepted  phrase." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment  and  motioned  to  me  to 
be  silent  too.  I  do  not  know  what  I  could  have  found 
to  say.     After  a  pause  she  resumed: 

"We  are  poor  people,  which  is  all  the  more  reason 
why  we  should  look  facts  in  the  face.  Clare  is  run- 
ning a  great  risk.  Are  you  prepared  to  face  it  ?  The 
risk  is  more  serious  than  the  simple  one  of  money, 
although  I  do  not  know  what  we  should  do.  Neither 
my  daughter  nor  I  would  accept  money.  I  do  not 
propose  to  make  a  great  fuss  about  your  having  come 
into  Clare's  life;  it  is  useless  to  talk  of  what  is  past. 
It  is  when  you  go  out  of  it  that  the  harm,  will  be 
complete." 

I  murmured  something  about  never  leaving  Clare. 

"That  is  not  true,"  said  the  old  lady.  "You  mean 
well  but  you  cannot  control  the  future.  You  cannot 
forestall  irksomeness  any  more  than  any  other  man. 
You  are  not  the  man  you  will  be.  Some  day  you  will 
tire  of  Clare  and  then  you  will  want  to  be  generous  and 
kind  and  full  of  delicacy  and  tact,  and  this  it  will  be 
which  will  break  her  heart  as  mine  was  broken  when 
her  father  left  me.  You  men  don't  understand  the 
harm  you  do.  I  would  have  followed  her  father  on 
my  knees  to  the  end  of  the  earth.  That  he  made  a 
hobby  of  women  was  nothing  to  me;  I  would  have 
waited  on  the  others.  ...  I  want  to  prevent  alto- 
gether or  at  least  to  lessen  the  sadness  of  the  day  I 


RESPONSIBILITY  245 

see  in  store  for  Clare.  I  will  not  consent  to  any  pro- 
longation of  a  fool's  paradise.  You  must  clear  the 
situation,  sir.  I  don't  ask  you  to  marry  my  daughter 
and  you  will  not  ask  me  to  receive  you  on  any  other 
terms.  Neither  will  I  consent  to  anything  clandestine 
and  underhand.  I  ask  you  to  break  off  your  relation- 
ship. Think  seriously,  Mr  Marston,  you  are  dealing 
in  a  human  life." 

I  glanced  at  Clare,  who  returned  my  look  with  that 
honest,  steady  gaze  of  hers. 

"One  word  more,  sir.  I  think  you  ought  to  know 
that  your  uncle  called  on  me  one  day  last  week  and 
talked  about  something  that  he  called  protection  for 
my  daughter.  I  mistrusted  him  and  denied  knowledge 
of  you.  He  gave  me  the  impression  that  he  has  some 
hold  over  you.  What  I  have  said  to  you  to-night  has 
nothing  to  do  with  his  visit;  it  has  been  in  my  mind 
to  speak  to  you  for  some  time.  I  think  that  is  all.  I 
beg  that  you  will  consider  very  seriously  what  I  have 
said  to  you,  and  I  wish  you  good-day." 

As  I  walked  home  all  the  stories  of  witty  libertin- 
age  which  I  had  ever  read  came  crowding  into  my 
brain.  I  could  not  rid  my  mind  of  all  those  letters 
of  polite  remonstrance  which  are  the  literary  stock-in- 
trade  of  passion  wearing  thin,  the  classic  expression  of 
the  fatigue  one  feels  for  the  mistress  prolonging  her 
worship  beyond  the  acceptable  time.  I  remembered 
that  the  French  have  a  word  for  the  situation.  Le 
collage.  I  felt  that  Clare's  mother  was  right,  that  I 
was  already,  to  put  it  bluntly,  tiring.  "I  will  seek 
some  way  to  leave  him,"  says  the  masterleaver  in  the 
play,  and  here  the  chance  of  a  way  out  offered,  positively 
offered.  I  began  to  square  with  my  honesty,  to  feel 
my  loyalty,  my  chivalry  even,  falling  away.     I  shall 


246  RESPONSIBILITY 

have  the  Westroms  and  all  decent  people  against  me. 
I  had  him  against  me  at  the  time  although  I  allowed 
him  to  see  little  of  the  affair.  But  then  the  Westroms 
have  never  known  insanity.  They  love  with  a  reason- 
able ardour  and  to  a  responsible  end.  "You'll  have  to 
buy  fire-irons  and  it's  no  end  of  a  lark  !" 

A  poor  burking  of  the  issue.  I  felt  that  I  had  no 
case,  or  at  least  no  avowable  one,  for  I  knew  that 
there  is  no  code  which  permits  a  man  to  desert  a  girl 
he  has  wronged  merely  because  he  has  outgrown  her. 
I  was  conscious  of  having  outgrown  Clare,  of  a  more 
engrossing  interest  in  myself  and  my  work,  and  I  was 
an  easy  prey  to  the  aesthetic  fallacy  of  the  period,  the 
amorality  of  the  artist.  This  fallacy  may  be  summed 
up  in  the  statement  that  the  creation  of  great  works 
of  art  frees  the  creator  from  moral  responsibility,  that 
the  writer  of  fine  books  is  immune  from  the  common 
obligations.  It  is  an  amazing  theory.  Still  more 
amazing  the  fact  that  a  whole  school  of  great  writers 
should  have  flourished  at  so  damnable  an  instigation. 
Cocasse,  cocasse ! 

I  do  not  admit  that  I  began  consciously  to  plan  the 
way  to  leave  Clare,  but  rather  that  my  thoughts  took 
to  straying  in  the  direction  of  a  considered  possibility. 
I  began  to  see  less  of  her,  less  and  still  less. 

§  xi 

Here  let  me  record  the  most  grotesque  incident  in 
Reuben  Ackroyd's  career,  his  sudden  flight  into  muni- 
cipal politics.  I  could  never  guess  the  motive,  can 
only  suppose  vanity.  My  uncle  stood  for  the  Shuffle- 
bottom  Cross  Ward  at  Crawley  Bridge  in  the  two  fold 
interest  of  the  artisan  and  the  Conservative  party,  a 
dexterous  combination   which   gave  his   prevaricatory 


RESPONSIBILITY  247 

genius  full  scope.  Holding  in  his  inmost  soul  that  the 
working  man  was  unfit  to  live,  he  proclaimed  that  he 
would  do  well  in  his  own  interest  to  submit  to  govern- 
ment by  his  betters.  Perhaps  this  is  a  little  hard. 
Taking  a  more  favourable  view,  Reuben  held  that  the 
worker  has  the  right  to  live,  but  only  in  the  sphere  for 
which  he  is  fitted  or  to  which  "it  has  pleased  God" 
to  call  him.    From  which  we  deduce. 


XVI 

The  working  man's  recognition  of  his  sphere  and 
his  contentment  therein  are  the  foundation  and  bul- 
wark of  society. 

Among  my  uncle's  public  promises  was  one  to  the 
effect  that  if  the  working  man  would  do  his  clear  duty 
in  the  matter  of  the  vote,  he,  Reuben,  engaged  him- 
self to  make  him  "fitter  for  the  battle" — i.e.  fitter  to 
make  more  money  for  his  employer.  In  return  I  have 
no  doubt  that  my  uncle  promised  himself  to  bury  the 
poor  fellow  handsomely  in  the  end;  in  the  interim  to 
acknowledge  his  touched  forelock  with  the  utmost  of 
his  affability.  In  other  words,  government  by  gracious- 
ness  and  doles. 

My  uncle's  opponent,  Robert  Inskip,  was  a  mild, 
insignificant  little  Socialist  with  a  fussy,  fretful  man- 
ner, rusty  clothes  and  steel  spectacles  held  together  with 
blobs  of  sealing-wax.  His  opinions  were  of  the  ex- 
tremest  and  most  violent  order,  inclining  to  the  view 
that  if  anything  Jack  is  a  trifle  better  than  his  master. 
An  inconsiderable  opponent,  the  sting  of  whose  opposi- 
tion lay  in  the  fact  that  he  was  Reuben's  chief  salesman. 
Inskip  had  been  the  first  in  the  field  and  had  declined 


248  RESPONSIBILITY 

to  give  way  on  his  master's  announcing  that  it  was  his 
pleasure  to  stand. 

"It  will  be  a  tough  fight  and  a  near  thing,"  had  been 
his  way  of  refusing  to  withdraw. 

I  have  before  me  my  uncle's  election  address,  which 
I  take  to  be  a  model  of  suave  blasphemy.     Here  it  is. 

To  the  electors  of 

SHUFFLEBOTTOM  CKOSS 

Gentlemen, 

On  November  1st  you  will  be  called  upon 
to  elect  a  representative  to  the  town  council.  I  have 
been  honoured  by  a  request  to  become  a  candidate  and 
have  pleasure  in  offering  such  poor  service  and  ability 
as  a  Higher  Power  has  granted  me. 

I  trust  that  the  confidence  which  I  have  long  enjoyed 
as  the  head  of  a  large  industrial  concern  in  vour  midst 
may  form  the  basis  of  a  wider  trust  and  a  larger  faith. 

In  the  event  of  my  election  I  shall  hope  to  take  my 
share  in  the  arduous  labours  and  responsibilities  of  the 
town's  "Watch  Committee,  upon  whose  deliberations  and 
decisions  so  much  of  the  safety  and  comfort  of  a  large 
community  necessarily  depends.  The  constant  support 
which  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  accord  to  our  local 
Vigilance  Society  should  be  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  the 
faith  which  is  in  me  as  to  the  value  of  prohibitionary 
measures. 

I  shall  support  all  efforts  to  make  the  amenities  of 
life  in  our  town  as  healthful  and  enjoyable  as  pos- 
sible. I  shall  advocate  the  establishment  of  a  Municipal 
Bowling  Green. 

If  you  do  me  the  honour  to  elect  me  as  your  repre- 
sentative I  shall  strive  for  the  public  attainment  of 


RESPONSIBILITY  249 

those  ideals  which  have  long  been  the  affair  of  my 
private  prayer  and  solicitude.  Amongst  these  ideals 
are 

Cheaper  and  Better  Housing 

Cheaper  and  Improved  Tramway  Service 

Cheaper  and  Improved  Lighting 

A  Higher  Responsibility  in  Public  Affairs 

and 
Lower  Rates. 

May  God  direct  your  votes! 

Yours  faithfully 

Reuben  Ackroyd. 

Little  Inskir/s  proclamation  based  on  the  Equal 
Rights  of  Man  was  a  grim  and  violent  effusion  largely 
made  up  of  scolding  but  ending  with  the  assurance 
that  human  woe  would  vanish  on  the  return  of  Robert 
Inskip  to  the  Crawley  Bridge  Council.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  record  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  contest,  the  pa- 
thetic fallacies  of  one  combatant,  the  resounding  pom- 
posities of  the  other.  If  Reuben  had  said  simply  "Vote 
for  me.  I  am  the  better  man,"  I  should  have  respected 
him.  If  Inskip  had  retaliated  "I  stand  for  the  better 
principle,"  I  should  have  applauded  him.  By  far  the 
most  effective  contribution  to  the  debate  was  the  Social- 
ist cartoon  "By  the  sweat  of  their  brow  shall  Reuben 
eat  bread." 

To  me  the  introduction  of  politics  into  a  city's  do- 
mestic economy  has  always  been  the  height  of  absurdity. 
So  long  as  streets  are  well  lighted  and  cleanly  swept, 
sewage  unostentatiously  removed,  traffic  controlled,  pick- 
pockets and  burglars  reasonably  restrained ;  so  long  as 
houses  of  pubic  refreshment  are  kept  open  beyond  a 


250  RESPONSIBILITY 

child's  bed-time;  so  long  as  trams  run  and  letters  are 
delivered,  so  long  do  I  care  nothing  at  all  whether  the 
overseers  are  Liberal  or  Conservative,  Turk  or  Mormon, 
Csesars,  Cannibals  or  Trojan  Greeks. 

After  a  time  it  seemed  possible  that  the  election  might 
go  against  my  uncle.  jSTo  man  can  grind  the  faces  of 
his  workpeople  for  thirty  years  without  producing  an 
effect  on  the  mind  of  even  so  notoriously  stupid  a  person 
as  an  elector.  And  then  Reuben  committed  one  of 
those  acts  of  madness  from  which  no  self-willed  man  is 
immune.  A  week  before  the  election  he  summoned 
Inskip  to  appear  before  him  in  his  private  office,  in 
the  presence  of  Geoffrey  and  myself. 

"Mr  Inskip,"  he  began  pleasantly,  "I  wish  to  refresh 
my  memory.    What  are  your  emoluments  ?" 

"Salary  four  pounds  a  week.  Commission  comes  to 
another  four." 

"And  that  commission  is  payable  when?" 

"At  the  end  of  the  year." 

"Mr  Inskip,"  said  my  uncle,  gravely  unfolding  a 
legal-looking  document,  "I  have  here  a  copy  of  our 
agreement.  I  see  that  it  stipulates  that  if  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  year  you  find  yourself  unable  to  make  a 
fresh  engagement  with  us  on  such  terms  as  may  be 
agreeable  to  both  parties  you  are  to  forfeit  whatever 
commission  is  due  to  you." 

"Does  it  say  that  ?"  said  Inskip,  his  face  growing 
suddenly  white. 

"It  does.  I  will  read  you  the  text."  And  my  uncle, 
for  a  space  of  five  minutes  by  the  clock,  read  in  porten- 
tous tones  a  mass  of  legal-sounding  jargon.  Folding 
up  the  paper  he  went  on:  "Well,  sir,  I  find  that  my 
conscience  will  not  allow  me  to  retain  in  my  employ  a 
man  whose  beliefs  are  subversive  of  the  very  foundations 


RESPONSIBILITY  251 

of  morality.  Mr  Inskip,  I  have  to  notify  you  that  if 
you  persist  in  your  immoral  campaign  I  have  the 
intention  of  offering  you  such  terms  for  your  next  year's 
engagement  as  will  probably  not  suit  you." 

"And  if  I  decline  them?" 

"Then  obviously,  according  to  our  agreement,  the 
commission  which  would  otherwise  become  due  to  you 
at  the  end  of  next  month  is  forfeit." 

My  temples  began  to  beat  and  Geoffrey  stopped 
whistling. 

"So  you  would  blackmail  me,"  said  Inskip  slowly. 
"You  know  I  am  a  poor  man."  It  was  obvious  that 
he  was  trying  to  grasp  the  full  extent  of  my  uncle's 
baseness. 

"Listen  to  me,  Mr  Inskip,"  said  Keuben.  "I  am 
indifferent  on  the  personal  count  as  to  which  of  us  wins 
this  election,  but  I  cannot  make  distinction  between 
public  and  private  morality.  I  have  lived  too  long  to 
care  for  personal  victories  or  defeats.  I  am  above  petty 
consideration." 

"It  is  the  cause,  it  is  the  cause,  my  soul !"  I  whisp- 
ered. 

"I  regard  your  views  as  a  menace  to  public  safety. 
I  am  myself  no  Socialist,  and  view  with  horror  all 
manifestations  of  that  spirit.  Socialism  saps  and  un- 
dermines; it  is  the  negation  of  individual  effort,  of  the 
obligation  to  deal  with  one's  talent  according  to  the 
means  the  Donor  of  all  talents  has  granted  us.  That 
it  is  immoral  to  reap  where  others  have  sown  should 
be  patent  to  the  meanest  intelligence.  I  feel  that  I  am 
morally  bound — and  I  consult  no  man's  conscience  but 
my  own — to  take  such  steps  as  may  be  open  to  me  to 
induce  you  to  relinquish  the  expression  of  these  views. 
Should  you  persist  in  them  I  warn  you  that  I  shall  not 


252  RESPONSIBILITY 

feel  justified  in  renewing  at  the  end  of  the  year  those 
relations  which  have  hitherto  existed  so  pleasantly  be- 
tween us.  Should  you  stand  down  I  think  that  per- 
haps we  might  see  our  way  to'-' — here  he  hesitated — 
"to  some  not  inconsiderable  modification  of  terms  which 
might  not  be  disagreeable  to  you.  This  is  tentative:  I 
make  no  promise." 

In  suspense  I  waited  for  Inskip's  reply.  His  hands 
were  clenched  and  his  mouth  tremulous. 

"Suppose  that  at  the  meeting  to-night "  he  be- 
gan. 

Reuben  cut  him  short. 

"You  won't  repeat  a  word,  and  you  know  you 
won't.  You  can  stir  up  a  lot  of  virtuous  indignation, 
of  course.  But  virtuous  indignation  is  poor  nourish- 
ment for  a  middle-aged  man  with  an  ailing  wife  and 
half-a-dozen  children.  It's  my  windows  against  your 
livelihood.  Who's  going  to  keep  you  and  them  after- 
wards? "Who's  going  to  take  yon  on  if  ever  you. 
leave  me?  You're  past  your  best  and  you've  no  connec- 
tion that  you  can  remove.  Come,  Mr  Inskip,  take  a 
sensible  view.  I  don't  threaten,  and  I  don't  bribe.  I 
merely  propose  another  hundred  a  year  in  recognition  of 
your  long  and  valued  services." 

And  then  little  Inskip  had  the  one  supreme  gesture 
of  his  meagre  life,  and  for  one  moment  trod  the  moun- 
tain tops  of  liberty.  For  one  instant  of  time  master  of 
his  soul,  never  again  to  be  free  of  his  slave's  fetters. 
He  strode  up  to  Reuben  Ackroyd  and  with  his  left  hand 
took  him  by  the  beard.  My  uncle  made  no  effort  to 
fend  him  off. 

Geoffrey  moved  towards  intervention  and  I  threw  my 
arms  around  him. 

"Leave  them,"  I  said.    "It's  man  to  man." 


RESPONSIBILITY  253 

"You  are  a  beast/'  said  Inskip  slowly,  "a  bloated, 
treacherous  beast.  I  have  known  you  for  forty  years 
and  I  have  always  known  you  for  what  you  are.  There 
is  not  a  starved  man  nor  half-fed  child  in  your  employ 
who  does  not  wish  you  dead  a  thousand  times  a  day. 
You  are  a  clog,  a  treacherous  cur,  and  if  I  had  neither 
wife  nor  children  I  would  kill  you  with  my  hands." 

"Amen,"  I  said  under  my  breath. 

"Help  me,  Geoffrey,"  the  old  man  gasped,  clawing 
at  the  frail  arm  which  held  him.  I  clung  the  more 
tightly. 

"Silence,  you  hound  of  hell,"  went  on  the  little  man, 
shaking  his  victim  with  all  the  fury  of  impotence.  "It's 
you  and  your  kind  who  make  Socialists.  It's  you  and 
your  kind  who  make  a  working  man's  life  what  it  is. 
It's  you  who  are  responsible  for  fevers  and  consump- 
tions, disease  and  death.  And  what  good  has  it  done 
you?  You've  thrown  away  loyalty  and  affection  and 
respect,  and  all  you've  got  is  hate  and  every  decent 
man's  contempt.  But  I've  got  to  be  quick ;  I  can't  keep 
this  up  for  long.  I'm  a  broken  man.  Here's  my  an- 
swer." 

And  with  that  he  flung  his  clenched  fist  full  into  the 
face  of  Keuben  Ackroyd,  philanthropist  and  man  of 
business.  I  released  Geoffrey.  My  passionate  hero, 
his  glory  quite  departed,  had  shrunk  to  his  normal 
significance  and  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  his 
face  buried  in  his  hands.  By  his  shoulders  I  could 
see  that  he  was  sobbing. 

I  have  no  recollection  of  how  the  principal  actors 
managed  their  exits  from  the  scene.  The  following 
day  Inskip  withdrew  his  candidature  and  to  the  end 
of  his  life  was  my  uncle's  whipped  dog.  It  is  true 
that  the  extra  hundred  a  year  was  a  God-send  to  him. 


254  RESPONSIBILITY 

§xii 

On  the  morning  of  my  twenty-fifth  birthday  I  found 
a  letter  in  my  uncle's  handwriting  addressed  to  me  at 
the  office.     It  ran: 

Me  Edwakd  Makston, — My  partner  and  myself 
will  be  obliged  if  you  will  attend  in  the  private  office 
at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon  of  to-morrow,  Tuesday. 
Yours  faithfully, 

Reuben  Ackroyd. 

My  uncle's  trick  of  conveying  the  simplest  com- 
munication by  letter  and  of  alluding  to  his  son  as 
"my  partner"  used  to  annoy  me  intensely.  It  annoys 
me  still. 

Eleven  o'clock  on  the  following  day  saw  me  ushered 
into  the  holy  of  holies.  There  I  found  Reuben  going 
through  his  letters  and  Geoffrey  lounging  by  the  win- 
dow whistling  softly  and  turning  over  the  pages  of  an 
old  and  tattered  manual  The  Horse,  The  Friend  of 
Man,  which,  incredibly,  had  adorned  the  window-sill 
for  thirty  years.  I  had  never  before  seen  anybody  open 
it  and  I  have  never  discovered  how  it  came  to  be  part 
of  the  properties  of  a  cotton-manufacturer's  sanctum. 
I  was  wool-gathering  in  this  profitless  way  when  I  was 
recalled  by  a  cough  from  my  uncle  and  the  note  of 
unusual  circumstances  which  he  threw  into  a  prelimi- 
nary. 

'-May  I  beg  your  attention,  Edward?" 

"My  dear  uncle,"   I  replied,   "I  am  not  a  public 


meeting. 


» 


"As  it  is  probable,"  he  went  on  without  taking  notice 
of  what  I  am  afraid  was  flippancy,  "as  it  is  probable 


RESPONSIBILITY  255 

that  this  will  be  the  last  time  on  which  I  shall  have  the 
privilege  of  addressing  you  on  matters  of  business,  I 
must  beg  that  you  will  listen  to  me  closely.  As  you 
know,  your  father  on  his  death  left  a  sum  of  money 
which  was  to  stand  in  your  name  on  the  books  of  the 
firm  until  such  time  as  you  should  have  completed 
your  twenty-fifth  year." 

I  nodded. 

"That  sum  of  money  amounted  to  twelve  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  some  odd  pounds.  Out  of  the 
interest  on  that  amount  two  hundred  pounds  a  year 
was  to  be  paid  to  me  for  your  maintenance,  the  balance 
to  be  added  to  your  capital." 

I  nodded  again. 

"I  am  pleased  to  tell  you  that  the  sums  I  have 
expended  on  your  behalf  have  never  in  any  one  year 
exceeded  the  two  hundred  pounds  and  have  occasion- 
ally fallen  below  that  figure.  I  have  endeavoured  in 
my  calculations  to  be  both  just  to  you  and  fair  to 
myself.  I  make  out  that  there  is  an  amount  owing  to 
you  on  maintenance  account,  including  interest,  of  three 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  pounds  odd.  I  hold  this 
amount  together  with  your  principal  at  your  disposal — 
.  some  seventeen  thousand,  four  hundred  pounds  in  all." 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you,"  I  began. 

"It  is  not  a  matter  of  kindness  but  of  common  probity. 
We  have  few  sentiments  in  common.  To-day  sees 
the  end  of  our  business  relations.  I  regret  that  I 
cannot  consent  to  admit  you  to  partnership  with  your 
cousin  Geoffrey  and  myself.  That  you  have  forfeited 
what  would  have  been  your  right  is  due  entirely  to 
your  own  waywardness  and  folly." 

"To  the  devil  with  his  prosy  oratory,"  and  "At 
least  I  shall  have  my  liberty"  are  all  that  I  remember 


256  RESPONSIBILITY 

thinking  as  I  stood  staring  steadily  at  my  uncle's 
blandly-beaming  spectacles. 

"Your  father  on  his  death-bed  entered  into  a  com- 
pact with  me  whereby  you  were  to  devote  yourself  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  firm  of  Ackroyd  and  Marston 
until  you  should  attain  the  age  of  twenty-five.  After 
which  and  subject  to  your  having  strictly  observed 
certain  conditions  of  that  compact  you  were  to  be 
admitted  to  partnership  in  that  firm." 

He  began  playing  with  a  legal-looking  document. 

"I  have  to  declare  that  you  have  vitiated  this  con- 
tract in  its  most  vital  essentials.  You  have  made  use 
of  your  Socialistic  views  to  oppose  the  best  interests  of 
the  firm;  you  have  thwarted  the  firm's  interests  at 
every  turn;  you  have  abused  your  position  to  preju- 
dice your  cousin  Geoffrey  and  myself  with  our  manu- 
facturers, our  customers,  and  our  employees.  He  that 
has  not  been  with  us  has  been  against  us." 

Astounding  old  rogue!  Was  there  no  limit  to  his 
blasphemy  ? 

"There  is  one  other  condition  to  which  your  right  of 
partnership  has  always  been  subject  and  that  is  the 
strict  observance  of  the  simple  moralities.  On  your 
father's  death  I  read  over  to  you  the  deed  to  which 
he  and  I  had  put  our  hands,  and  of  which  you  were 
provided  with  a  copy.  You  must  therefore  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  had  cognisance  of  its  conditions.  I 
think  you  will  not  deny  that  your  moral  conduct  has 
been  and  is  at  the  present  time  such  as  must  prejudice 
in  the  highest  degree  the  interests  of  the  firm  you 
serve.  I  presume  you  will  not  deny  that  you  have  a 
mistress  who  is  a  public  dancer  and  to  whose  upkeep 
you  contribute.  I  am  advised  by  my  lawyers  that  I 
am  under  no  obligation  to  admit  you  to  partnership, 


RESPONSIBILITY  257 

and  I  will  not  deny  that  here  my  interest  and  my 
conscience  are  one.  My  partner  and  I  are  perfectly 
well  able  to  dispense  with  the  use  of  your  small  capital 
and  we  consider  your  further  services  to  be  both  useless 
to  the  firm  and  dangerous.  I  may  inform  you  that  the 
partnership  you  have  forfeited  would  have  been  worth 
the  greater  part  of  two  thousand  a  year — including 
interest  on  capital  say  two  thousand  five  hundred  a 
year.  Whether  this  is  too  high  a  price  to  pay  for  the 
course  of  conduct  you  have  chosen  to  pursue  it  is  not 
for  me  to  decide.  My  partner  and  I  have  arranged  to 
admit  Mr  Temple  in  your  place  at  a  share  which  is 
advantageous  to  him  and  to  ourselves.  I  have  the 
less  compunction  at  arriving  at  this  decision  inasmuch 
as  with  prudent  investment  you  still  possess  seven 
hundred  a  year.  That  amount  will  doubtless  permit 
you  to  play  the  Socialist  and  the  blackguard  whereso- 
ever you  will,  but  at  least  not  in  partnership  with  me 
or  my  son." 

"Shut  the  door  upon  him  and  let  him  play  the  fool 
nowhere  but  in's  own  house,"  I  whispered  softly. 

"I  have  a  cheque  at  your  disposal,"  said  Reuben. 

I  have  never  known  what  it  is  to  hesitate  at  a  crisis. 

"My  dear  uncle,"  I  said,  "let  me  compliment  you 
on  your  style.  You  have  the  embezzler's  sense  of  legal 
nicety.     Give  me  my  principal  and  let  me  go." 

For  all  answer  he  handed  me  an  envelope  contain- 
ing a  cheque  for  the  total  amount  of  my  fortune. 

And  thus  I  was  never  a  partner  in  the  firm  of  Ack- 
royd  and  Marston. 


The  following  morning  brought  me  another  letter. 
It  was  from  Clare  and  was  very  short. 


258  RESPONSIBILITY 

My  dear,  dear  Ned  (she  wrote), — I  know  that 
to-day  is  the  day  of  your  partnership  and  that  you 
are  a  rich  man.  But  I  know  also  that  you  are  tired 
of  me  and  I  cannot  bear  the  thought  that  I  shall  soon 
be  no  more  than  a  drag  and  encumbrance  upon  you. 
I  know  that  you  would  be  generous,  but  I  do  not  want 
generosity  either  for  myself  or  for  the  child  you  will 
never  know.  I  had  great  difficulty  in  making  mother 
promise  not  to  tell  you  about  that.  The  day  you  came 
to  see  her  was  the  day  when  I  put  you  to  the  touch. 
I  was  determined  that  if  I  could  not  keep  you  out  of 
affection  I  would  never  try  to  hold  you  out  of  pity. 
And  as  the  child  grew  in  me  I  felt  your  love  diminish 
.    .    .  and  then  it  became  impossible  to  tell  you. 

We  have  decided  that  it  is  best  that  we  should  go 
away.  When  you  get  this  we  shall  have  already  gone; 
we  intend  to  lose  ourselves  in  some  small  town  where 
you  will  never  find  us.  For  your  comfort  let  me  tell 
you  that  I  have  some  savings  and  that  we  are  in  no 
immediate  danger  of  want.  I  began  to  put  a  little 
aside  when  first  you  forgot  my  birthday,  and  I  have 
enough  to  carry  us  through  until  my  looks  come  back 
again.  Spender  will  always  find  me  a  place  in  one  of 
his  companies,  he  says  for  as  long  as  I  can  dance,  but 
he  means  for  as  long  as  I  remain  pretty. 

I  am  not  going  to  worry  you,  Ned,  with  useless  re- 
proaches. I  daresay  I  was  not  clever  enough  to  keep 
you.  God  knows  that  I  tried  hard  enough,  but  trying 
is  no  good.  Perhaps  nothing  is  any  good  when  the 
fancy  is  past.  I  thought  that  if  I  loved  you  and 
was  true  to  you  and  had  no  thought  for  anybody  else 
but  you,  you  would  be  satisfied.  I  know  now  that  men 
are  not  like  that,  or  at  least  that  my  man  was  not 


RESPONSIBILITY  259 

like  that.     I  would  willingly  have  laid  down  my  life 
for  you. 

Good-bye,  Ned,  and  God  bless  you.     You  were  good 
to  me  according  to  your  lights. 

I  never  saw  Clare  again,  nor  set  eyes  upon  my  son 
until  he  was  grown  to  manhood. 

§xiii 

I  suppose  I  shall  have  the  charge  of  callousness  to 
face.  I  know  that  it  would  be  pretty  and  effective 
if  I  could  here  recount  a  long  and  hopeless  search,  a 
year  or  two's  quest  for  Clare.  Let  me  be  at  least  fair 
to  myself — I  had  been  suddenly  set  free  from  an  irk- 
some business  with  possession  of  what  was  for  me  a 
fortune,  had  newly-found  urgency  and  leisure  to  write. 
I  think  I  felt  that  a  charge  of  baseness  would  lie, 
and  although  I  did  not  plead  the  books  I  was  to  write 
in  mitigation  at  least  they  took  on  some  redemptive 
colouring.  Not  "my  work  is  the  excuse,"  but  "my 
work  shall  be  the  amends."  I  had  some  awkward 
moments  when  I  tried  to  reconcile  with  my  treachery 
our  youthful  theoretical  stuff,  the  carrying  on  of  the 
race,  Nature's  law,  and  all  the  grandiloquent  rest  of  it. 
I  could  better  have  faced  a  frank,  illicit  union  with 
open  recognition  of  the  consequences  than  this  shirking 
of  responsibility.  "You  are  my  immortality,"  m£ 
father  had  written,  and  "Remember  that  I  am  part 
of  you  for  ever  and  that  when  you  too  are  a  father 
you  will  be  part  of  your  son  for  ever."  But  I  confesa 
that  I  did  not  worry  very  greatly  over  this.  I  was 
too  young  and  too  deeply  engrossed  in  creating  my  own 
immortality. 

And  so  I  settled  down  to  my  writing.    In  three  years 


260  RESPONSIBILITY 

of  hard  toil  I  produced  two  novels  with  the  scant 
success  I  have  already  related.  I  suppose  that  during 
this  time  I  ate  a  certain  number  of  meals,  slept  a 
certain  number  of  hours,  had  certain  minor  indis- 
positions, took  occasional  holidays.  I  saw  nothing  of 
my  uncle  and  little  of  Monica.  My  friends  were  scat- 
tered, Westrom  faithful  to  Crawley  Bridge  which  I 
never  again  visited,  Reinecke  ransacking  South  America 
for  more  plunder  for  Strumbach,  Claud  in  London, 
Ransom  heaven  knows  where.  I  stuck  to  Manchester 
for  a  time  through  sheer  timidity,  and  can  honestly 
say  that  the  only  events  which  befell  me  were  occasional 
letters  from  my  friends.  Here  is  the  one  which  West- 
rom  wrote  on  the  appearance  of  my  second  novel: 

.  .  .  It's  a  fine  attempt,  anyhow.  Don't  worry 
about  sales.  I  see  that  the  reviews  are  good,  but  re- 
views have  no  more  relation  to  sales  than  sales  have 
to  merit.  It  is  possible  to  have  "notices"  such  as 
Milton  might  have  beamed  over  and  yet  sell  no  copies 
at  all.  It  depends  almost  entirely  on  your  publisher's 
methods  being  vulgar  enough  and  whether  Jiis  salesmen 
have  the  right  sort  of  boots.  If  I  were  to  write  a 
novel  I  should  have  it  given  out  that  the  MS.  had 
been  found  in  the  coffin  of  an  exhumed  Duke,  or  any 
other  balderdash.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  you  can 
never  be  sure  what  kind  of  bait  the  public  sis  in  the 
mood  to  swallow,  and  it  is  a  waste  of  good  vulgarity 
to  be  vulgar  without  succeeding. 

Will  you  forgive  a  word  of  advice?  Beware  of  the 
parish  of  sex.  You  advanced  fellows  are  so  thunder- 
ingly  behind  the  times  with  what  you  would  call  your 
passionate  preoccupations.  (I  dislike  most  of  your 
jargon.)     I  am  for  an  honest  betrayal  as  much  as  any 


RESPONSIBILITY  261 

man  and  can  cry  like  a  good  'un  over  Hetty  Sorrel 
and  Jeanie  Deans.  But  then  I'm  a  civilised  cove 
and  not  a  satyr. 

It's  wiser  being  good  than  bad; 

It's  safer  being  meek  than  fierce; 

It's  fitter  being  sane  than  mad,  etc.,  etc. 

Why  not  a  novel  in  which  goodness  is  made  interest- 
ing? You  will  say  that  it  can't  be  done;  all  the  more 
reason  for  trying.  Muscular  Christians  are  not  neces- 
sarily fools,  you  know.  And  what  shall  it  avail  a  writer 
if  he  possess  all  the  mots  justes  and  have  not  charity 
towards  his  fellow-creatures?  On  a  technical  point, 
don't  crowd  your  good  things  too  closely.  Give  our  dull 
wits  elbow-room.  When  your  apparently  trivial  novelist 
tells  you  that  the  Lady  Ethelberta  poured  herself  out 
another  cup  of  tea  and  took  another  piece  of  toast,  he 
is  merely  giving  the  reader  time  to  take  in  that  last 
fine  sally  of  her  lover's.  Verbal  sword-play  must  not 
be  so  fast  that  you  cannot  see  the  fencing.  Have  you 
never  noticed  that  even  the  best  actresses  are  floored 
by  the  suddenness  of  Beatrice's  "Kill  Claudio !"  After 
Benedick's  "Come,  bid  me  do  anything  for  thee,"  they 
find  it  pays  to  strike  an  attitude  and  exclaim  "Any- 
thing?" or  "Just  repeat  that  remark,  will  you?"  and 
then,  having  tipped  the  wink  to  the  spectator  who 
was  eating  chocolates  or  fiddling  with  his  programme 
and  generally  not  paying  attention,  they  proceed  to 
the  launching  of  the  tremendous  line.  Kemember  that 
you  can't  prevent  the  reader  from  putting  your  book 
down  just  in  time  to  miss  your  best  effect  and  taking 
it  up  again  a  page  later.  And  that  whilst  most  readers 
are  fools  this  is  not  true  of  all,  any  more  than  that 
all  authors  are  as  Godlike  as  you  would  make  them  out 
to  be. 


262  RESPONSIBILITY 

Of  home  news,  little.  My  wife  is  in  bed  with  a  cold, 
and  the  servant  is  in  high  dudgeon  at  not  having  a  cold 
too.  Consequently  I  am  off  upstairs  to  give  Rupert 
his  bath  and  Gerald  his  pobs.  You  probably  object 
to  the  humdrum  of  this.  When  will  you  learn  that  it  is 
provincial  and  suburban  and  parochial,  and  all  three 
at  once,  to  jeer  at  the  normal  merely  because  it  ts 
normal.  We  must  all  cultivate  our  back  gardens,  though 
to  do  this  it  is  not  essential  that  we  should  have  sown 
the  front  lawn  with  wild  oats. 

Then  this  from  Reinecke. 

I  am  arrived  in  Paraguay  via  Hamburg,  which  is 
after  all  the  Fatherland.  It  is  not  right  that  a  good 
German  should  abandon  his  mother-expressions.  Of 
course  it  wa3  necessary  for  me  who  have  not  been  in 
Germany  since  some  years  to  journey  from  Coblenz 
to  Bingen  on  the  bosom  of  our  so-beautiful  river.  The 
little  villages  each  with  four  houses  and  sixteen  beer- 
gardens  are  too  lovely.  But  how  did  I  feel  the  benefit 
of  my  English  training  when  I  accompanied  a  party 
of  my  countrymen  to  visit  that  big,  ugly  Tcemach,  the 
Emperor's  Castle !  The  ceilings  are  painted  red,  blue 
and  yellow,  the  carpets  are  of  purple  and  the  uphol- 
stery of  green.  The  walls  are  decorated  with  con- 
stipated art  works  by  German  professors  with  frames 
of  solid  gold.  Passing  the  Lorelei,  that  side  of  the 
boat  which  was  nearest  to  it  was  weighed  down  by  the 
sudden  rush  of  Fatherlanders.  Eat  men  and  fatter 
women,  all  with  huge  sausages  in  the  mouth  and  mugs 
of  beer  and  bottles  of  Rhine-wine  in  the  hand  were 
acting  and  wunderschon-ing  in  the  most  ludicrous  man- 
ner.    To  think  that  if  I  had  not  been  in  England  I 


RESPONSIBILITY  263 

should  make  the  same  noises !  Whilst  I  was  in  Ger- 
many I  noticed  that  my  eyes  bulged  already  and  I  began 
to  want  spectacles. 

I  am  now  the  perfect  commercial  traveller.  Is  it 
interesting  to  you  to  learn  that  I  have  to-day  sold 
50,000  kilos  cardboard?  It  is  so  very  disagreeable  to 
act  as  commis-voyageur,  to  be  forced  to  think  all  day 
business,  so  that  you  cannot  listen  any  more  to  the 
"sweet  unheard  melodies"  of  your  soul.  I  am  com- 
pensating for  this  disagreeable  trade  with  an  affection 
for  a  charming  little  South  American  girl.  That  is 
to  say  I  am  puzzling  how  to  get  rid  of  her.  I  am 
so  easily  tired  of  women.  May  they  be  as  lovely  as 
possible,  they  never  reach  the  ideal. 

Shall  I  bore  you  with  my  scenery  descriptions? 
You  cannot  imagine  the  beauty  of  this  old  river  where 
hundred  and  hundred  years  ago  lived  the  Indians  in 
the  beautiful  forests  at  his  borders.  I  walk  by  his 
side  in  the  evening  and  read  one  Spanish  book,  one 
very  clever  German  book  about  Goethe — as  all  must 
be  clever  which  is  connected  with  Goethe — and  some 
Nietzsche,  at  times  no  reasonable  stuff.  One  must 
see  to  understand  the  beauty  of  this  sunset ;  the  senti- 
mentality almost  German  of  this  night,  when  the  part- 
ing sun  lays  his  last  rays  on  the  trees  as  a  token  of 
the  friendship  of  centuries.  Happy  is  he  who  can  hold 
aloof  from  his  real  life  and  understand  the  language 
of  flowers  and  of  nature.  But  I  will  not  describe 
further.    Beisebriefe  always  bore. 

Sometimes  I  think  I  will  never  be  worth  much  in- 
terest. I  do  not  think  now  that  you  will  ever  see 
"Curt  Eeinecke  Op.  100"  on  the  cover  of  some  big 
symphony  or  opera.  I  can  think  beautiful  things  but  I 
cannot   invent   them.      They   are   underneath    50,000 


264  RESPONSIBILITY 

kilos  cardboard !  I  do  not  want  to  be  tbe  Strumbach  of 
Hamburg,  but  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  succeed  in 
business  when  one  is  a  Jew.  Is  this  mad  ?  One  has  to 
be  mad  occasionally.  I  notice  that  happiness  comes 
often  from  no  reason.  Eecently  when  I  was  one  day  on 
a  ship  I  was  happy.  There  were  a  lot  of  hemach  on 
board,  and  some  mannerless  Germans.  Also  two  Eng- 
lish people,  so  proud  that  if  they  were  dying  no  one 
would  dare  to  speak  with  them.  Then  there  were  a 
lot  of  emigrants.  One  woman  with  a  baby  at'  her 
breast  was  eating  soup  of  macaroni,  and  while  she  was 
eating  the  baby  was  sucking  hard.  One  of  the  maca- 
ronis fell  on  her  bosom  and  she  left  it  there  and  con- 
tinued her  dinner.  I  wondered  whether  she  was 
happy.  ... 

Yesterday  I  went  to  the  opera  and  heard  the  Maestri 
Cantori  by  Bicardo  Wagner ! !  That  is  enough  to  make 
happy  for  a  year,  both  the  opera  and  the  way  they 
call  it  here. 

Do  not  make  a  sour  face  at  this  long  letter.  Write 
soon  to  my  honourable  person. 

And  at  length  news  came  from  Ransom. 

1000  Coeneille  Avenue,  Chicago. 

You  will  be  surprised,  my  dear  Marston,  to  hear 
from  me  after  all  this  time.  But  perhaps  you  have 
guessed  that  I  was  determined  not  to  write  until  I  had 
achieved  some  sort  of  success.  And  I  have  achieved 
it;  at  least  I  have  a  wife,  a  flat,  and  money  in  the 
bank.    It  has  not  been  easy. 

I  got  here  in  three  stages.  First,  London.  After 
infinite  difficulty  I  managed  to  get  on  to  the  staff  of 
the  advertising  department  of  a  respectable  Tory  jour- 


RESPONSIBILITY  265 

nal.  There  when  I  was  not  occupied  in  bag-carrying, 
cab-fetching  or  running  errands  for  the  senior  employees 
I  was  permitted  to  tinker  up  the  pictures  of  dapper 
little  gentlemen  in  frock-coats  demonstrating  to  ele- 
gant mondaines  the  superiority  of  gas-fires  over  elec- 
tricity, or  vice  versa.  They  say  Millais  or  some  other 
English  painter  was  never  so  happy  as  wThen  he  was 
putting  the  high  lights  on  to  a  pair  of  patent  leathers. 
I  soon  tired  of  it,  and  went  the  round  of  the  publishers 
in  search  of  illustrative  work.  You  know,  I  can  do 
that;  if  I  don't  interpret  too  slavishly,  at  least  I  don't 
get  in  the  author's  way.  I  pestered  these  gentlemen 
with  all  the  assiduity  of  broken-down  ladies  keeping 
body  and  soul  together  on  out-of-date  encyclopaedias 
and  discarded  atlases.  Most  publishers  refused  to  see 
me;  those  who  did  gave  me  advice.  Streidlitz  said: 
"Do  me  a  series  of  fifty  illustrations  to — here  he 
hummed  and  haa'd — Shakespeare,  and  I'll  have  a  look 
at  'em."  Dobie  and  Dyson  said :  "Do  us  a  dozen  or  so 
up-to-date  sketches  for  Dickens,  something  smart  and 
slick,  and  we'll  consider."  I  asked  whether  they 
wouldn't  like  to  see  my  "idea  of  a  cathedral,"  where- 
upon they  fired  me  out.  Not  one  of  them  would  so 
much  as  look  at  the  drawings  which  I  had  done. 

Fools! 

"High  adventure"  is  all  rubbish.     I  wanted  work. 

And  then  I  got  a  job,  chair-designing,  which  took 
me  to  Brussels,  but  it  didn't  last  long.  There  are 
only  seven  shapes  of  chairs.  It  was  here  that  I  came 
in  for  a  fine  bit  of  fun.  I  put  in  a  week's  hard  drawing 
at  the  Academy — from  the  life — so  as  to  be  able  to 
compete  for  admission.  I  learned  one  thing  and  one 
thing  only  during  those  absurd  seven  days,  which  was 
that  whilst  the  students  looked  like  revolutionaries  and 


266  RESPONSIBILITY 

anarchists  and  had  the  appropriate  unwashed  manners, 
they  were  in  reality  mild,  oh,  so  unutterably,  incalcul- 
ably mild !  I  did  not  unearth  a  talent  or  a  vice  among 
the  lot.  They  followed  the  pencil  of  a  Belgian  pro- 
fessor with  a  Scotch  accent — he  had  been  a  drawing- 
master  in  Glasgow — with  about  as  much  intelligence 
as  performing  seals  follow  the  stick.  They  followed 
with  their  noses  and  the  same  silly  air  as  a  seal.  There's 
something  in  hypnotism;  the  professor  called  it  tradi- 
tion. You  may  rest  assured  that  I  made  a  drawing 
after  my  own  heart,  a  sprawling,  ill-mannered,  ag- 
gressively anti-academic  thing.  They  slammed  the 
door  in  my  face.  .    .    . 

By  this  time  I  had,  of  course,  got  to  the  end  of  my 
money.  A  dozen  times  I  wrote  to  people  in  England 
and  a  dozen  times  I  tore  the  letter  tip.  I  couldn't  beg, 
I  had  no  acquaintances  to  borrow  from,  and  I  wasn't 
clever  enough  to  steal. 

So  I  decided  to  "shake  the  dust,"  etc.  and  turn  my 
back  on  Europe. 

Ye  gentlemen  of  England  that  stay  at  home  at  ease, 
what  a  funny  lot  you  are!  Saturday  afternoons  in 
the  bosom  of  your  families,  household  wit  on  the  links. 
I  wonder  whether  I  shall  ever  return  to  it  all  again. 

In  this  broad,  simple,  Whitmanesque  country  I  can 
at  least  breathe.  I've  been  able  to  get  work  and  I've 
been  well  paid  for  it.  What  does  it  matter  if  it's  only 
designing  palaces  for  millionaires  ?  I  say  "designing." 
Of  course  I'm  fantastically  ignorant  of  strains  and 
stresses,  thrusts  and  pulls.  They  have  rude  mechanical 
fellows  to  see  that  the  erections  don't  tumble  down ;  my 
job  is  the  facade  which  I  titivate  according  to  the  cus- 
tomer's taste  and  fancy.  I  can  do  you  as  smart  a  bit  of 
Gothic  or  chic  Byzantine  as  you  could  wish  to  set  eye9 


RESPONSIBILITY  267 

on.  The  work  is  not  really  as  bad  as  it  sounds;  and 
in  any  case  I  get  immense  fun  out  of  the  clients.  In 
Manchester  I  had  to  choose  between  Strumbach  and 
honesty,  in  London  between  bag-carrying  and  the  streets. 
The  worst  of  it  was  that  my  masters  wouldn't  even 
pick  my  brains.  I  would  have  devilled  for  them  loyally 
and  without  recognition ;  the  knowledge  that  my  brains 
were  not  quite  thrown  away  would  have  contented  me. 
But  they  knew  better.  You  may  say  my  work  out  here 
is  low.  Admitted,  but  better  the  store  than  the  gutter. 
The  heroic  disposition  doesn't  suffice ;  you  must  be  able 
to  go  without  meals  as  well. 

In  the  meantime  I  am  amused  by  America  and  the 
Americans.  They  are,  by  the  way,  thunderingly  un- 
true to  Henry  James. 

I  have  kept  this  from  Rodd  till  the  last. 

Well,  my  play  is  launched  and  it's  going  fine.  It's 
a  succes  de  scandale  and  a  money-maker  to  boot.  It's 
all  about  a  young  woman  who  wants  to  be  a  mother 
but  can't  be  bothered  with  a  husband — the  milieu,  the 
Yorkshire  colliery  districts.  I've  got  an  actress  for  the 
London  production  with  the  most  perfect  Houndsditch 
accent — you  must  always  give  the  Cockney  something 
he  can  understand.  I  am  fitting  out  half-a-dozen  tour- 
ing companies  for  the  provinces  and  shall  of  course 
vary  the  dialect  with  the  coal-seam.  There's  nothing 
Swansea  likes  better  than  holding  up  its  hands  at 
Barnsley  and  vice  versa.  Sticking  your  nose  into  other 
people's  dirty  linen  is  an  amusing  game.  ...  I  badly 
want  the  play  to  be  a  success  for  the  sake  of  those 
I  shall  be  allowed  to  write  afterwards.  Once  make 
vour  mark  and  the  public  will  take   anything  from 


268  RESPONSIBILITY 

you,  even  good  work.  But  they're  a3  shy  as  trout; 
you're  got  to  tickle  'em. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  I  had  a  pretty  stiff  time 
at  the  start.  There's  an  old  saying  that  there's  plenty 
of  room  at  the  top ;  I  would  add  that  it  is  of  little  use 
having  the  upper-story  genius  unless  you  have  the 
ground-floor  talent  as  well.  When  I  came  up  to  London 
I  was  prepared  to  turn  out  a  column  on  Greek  tragedy 
which  old  Pater  would  not  have  jibbed  at,  but  I  soou 
found  that  I  was  no  good  at  the  smart  and  pithy  "par." 
It  took  me  a  year  to  learn  that  what  newspapers  want 
is  not  criticism  but  paragraphs,  and  now  I'll  undertake 
to  be  as  snappy  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Did  you 
know  it  was  I  who  discovered  Maeterlinck  ?  You  only 
knew  him  as  a  poet ;  I  found  out  he  was  fond  of  auto- 
mobiles and  slipped  over  to  Brussels  to  interview  him. 
"Motorist  and  Mystic !"  How's  that  for  a  headline  ?  It 
makes  me  wonder  what  has  become  of  our  old  hemach 
album. 

I  began  my  apprenticeship  to  the  trade  of  scribbling 
by  doing  some  fifty  articles  on  the  theatre  for  one  of 
those  provincial  newspapers  run  in  the  interests  of  a 
stable,  a  kennel,  and  the  Conservative  party.  Fifty 
columns  of  my  best  blood  and  brains,  or  what  was  left 
of  them  after  some  three  hours  of  a  London  first  night 
in  a  corner  where  you  can't  hear  and  behind  a  pillar 
where  you  can't  see.  Ten  thousand  lines .  I  "con- 
tributed"— at  least  forty  pounds'  worth  at  the  rate 
for  murders  and  street  accidents.  You'll  never  guess 
what  they  sent  me.  Seven  pounds,  my  dear,  and  said 
it  was  more  than  they  originally  intended  owing  to 
the  "superior  quality  of  the  stuff."  The  cheque  came 
on  Christmas  Eve.  Hard  up  though  I  was,  I  gave  it 
to  a  cabby  to  buy  a  new  coat  and  wrote  and  told  'em  so. 


RESPONSIBILITY  269 

"Quixotic  beggar,  Rodd,"  said  superb  Crcesus,  when 
he  got  my  letter,  or  so  his  manager  told  me.  And  now 
I've  just  turned  him  down  at  a  fiver  a  column ! 

Then  I  did  a  turn  at  advertising  work.  "Pillsbury's 
Pastilles  sweeten  the  Breath  and  make  Conversation  a 
Pleasure"  was  my  find.  There  is  no  complaint  how- 
ever monstrous  and  ludicrous  for  which  I  have  not  in- 
vented a  rhyming  remedy.  I  can  tease  you  to  smile 
with  my  cure  for  constipation  and  charm  you  to  a 
tear  on  the  subject  of  superfluous  hair.  Vendors  of 
patent  medicines  have  come  to  me  boggling  at  the  half- 
heartedness  of  their  advisers.  Give  me  the  daggers, 
I  would  reply,  and  carve  them  a  seller  out  of  atrocity's 
living  rock. 

For  a  time  I  earned  a  living  playing  the  piano  at 
"At  Homes."  They  used  to  give  me  a  pound  a  night, 
guineas  when  a  while  tie  was  de  rigueur.  I  have 
disguised  myself  as  a  Hungarian  and  as  a  Pole,  a  Kaffir 
and  a  Chinaman,  even  on  occasion  as  a  gentleman.  I 
have  worn  plush  and  powdered  my  hair.  There  is  in 
point  of  fact  no  indignity  to  which  I  have  not  sub- 
mitted. I  have  learned  to  look  more  lenientlv  on  those 
poor  drabs  who  wear  tawdry  finery  and  dye  their  hair. 
(By  the  way  I've  got  an  idea  for  a  story — all  about  a 
harlot  who  keeps  her  intellectual  privacy  and  talks 
down  to  her  lovers.)  I  remember  one  over-bosomed 
duchess  asking  if  I  could  play  Venus  on  the  Hill.  I 
was  surprised,  but  said  I  could  and  began  to  kick  up 
the  very  deuce  of  a  shindy  with  my  version  of  the 
Venusberg  music  from  Tannliauser,  which  really  is  a 
version,  let  me  tell  you !  After  about  five  minutes  the 
poor  beldam  said  she  had  had  enough  of  the  introduc- 
tion and  could  the  waltz  begin.  It  turned  orit  that 
Venus  on  the  Hill  is  something  to  dance  to.       There  is 


270  RESPONSIBILITY 

extraordinarily  little  difference  between  Park  Lane  and 
Shufflebottom's  Cross. 

I  have  just  come  from  a  dress  rehearsal  at  the  Greater 
England  Theatre  where  Lustgarten  is  giving  what  he 
calls  "A  Christmas  Allegory  of  Good-will."  It  is 
not  to  be  called  a  pantomime  although  the  title,  The 
Wings  of  a  Dove,  has  given  the  old  boy's  scenic  genius 
all  the  scope  it  wants.  There's  a  bird  in  it,  a  very 
ordinary  pigeon  by  the  way,  procured  from  some  vil- 
lainous cut-throat  fancier.  The  clou  of  the  evening 
is  to  be  the  flight  of  poor  Fan  from  the  stage  to  its 
cote  in  the  gallery — the  bird  consenting  of  course. 
The  deputy-sub-assistant-stage-managor  who  has  been 
rehearsing  the  flight  for  ten  hours  a  day  went  down 
on  his  knees  this  afternoon  imploring  the  bird  to  dis- 
close its  intentions  as  to  to-morrow.  To-day  it  refused 
to  budge  an  inch.  If  it  sulks'  "on  the  night"  bang 
goes  three  hundred  a  year  or  whatever  it  is  the  poor 
rehearser  gets.  If  the  flight  is  achieved  then  Lustgarten 
himself,  astute  old  monkey,  will  come  forward  and 
"take  the  call."  He'll  kiss  the  bird  of  course,  and 
you'll  all  grovel. 

I'm  by  way  of  being  in  his  confidence  since  I  began 
to  "influence  taste,"  as  he  says.  Influence  the  receipts 
is  what  he  means.  You  know  it's  not  safe  for  even  the 
best  people  to  make  up  their  minds  about  a  play  until 
they've  seen  what  I've  got  to  say  about  it.  Lustgarten 
tells  me  that  after  "the  season  of  good-will"  he's  going 
to  do  Chopin,  or  The  Story  of  an  Ungrateful  Mistress. 
His  idea  is  to  walk  about  the  stage  trying  to  look 
consumptive  and  jotting  down  inspiration  in  a  penny 
notebook,  what  time  the  orchestra  plays  snatches  of 
that  awful  Funeral  March.  Then  there  are  to  be  some 
nineteen  women — to  represent  the  Nocturnes.     I  had 


RESPONSIBILITY  271 

to  look  up  Grove  to  satisfy  him  that  there  are  nineteen 
and  not  six  or  forty-five;  he's  a  stickler  for  accuracy, 
you  know.  Then  these  nineteen  wenches — always  pre- 
suming there  are  nineteen — are  to  step  out  of  frames 
and  dance  round  him  while  he  dreams.  I  believe  he 
intends  to  have  a  sleep-walking  scene  in  which  he 
fumbles  at  the  keys  whilst  that  hackneyed  old  thing  in 
E  flat  is  played  "off."  Doesn't  the  old  boy  know  his 
public  ?     Ransom's  Strumbach  all  over  again. 

The  most  amusing  thing  about  the  theatre  is  its 
underworld,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  it  isn't  instructive 
as  well.  I  often  spend  an  hour  in  a  low  bar  opposite 
the  stage-door  of  the  Greater  England.  There  you  see 
the  world  old  Westrom  had  no  inkling  of  and  wanted 
to  make  allowances  for — the  world  of  stage  hands, 
doorkeepers,  call-boys,  seedy  out-of-work  actors,  hangers- 
on,  touts,  all  the  hundred  and  one  extraordinary  crea- 
tures that  hover  on  the  edge  of  the  stage.  There  you 
hear  preposterous  stories  of  old  Lustgarten  in  that 
wonderful  accent  which  is  half  East  End  clothier  and 
half  sham  Italian  voice-producer.  There  you  can  sur- 
prise some  ethereal  creature's  dresser  in  search  of  stout, 
and  young  Apollo  turned  Beau  Brocade  nibbling  a 
sandwich.  Then  all  that  half-world  of  uncertain  defini- 
tion, unscrupulous  and  suspect,  without  function  or  pur- 
pose ;  that  half-world  which  is  all  generosity,  good- 
nature, wit  and  drift,  hopeless,  helpless  drift. 

The  other  evening  I  went  to  supper  at  old  Ravens- 
court's.  I  don't  suppose  you  have  ever  heard  of  him; 
he  is  reputed  to  have  been  a  famous  juvenile  lead  in 
the  early  fifties.  The  critics  of  the  period  speak  of 
him  as  a  young  Adonis  of  singular  beauty  and  a  very 
promising  actor.  He  is  both  still!  Do  you  remember 
Maupassant's  story  of  the  young  man  of  ninety  who 


272  RESPONSIBILITY 

danced  at  the  public  balls?  Ravenscourt  is  like  that. 
There  is  an  atmosphere  about  him  of  nard  and  aloes, 
or  whatever  it  is  embalmers  use.  He  introduced  me  to 
a  Miss  Smithers — who  the  deuce  is  she? — and  talked 
a  lot  about  her  performances  of  Medea  and  Electro,  in 
ancient  Greek.  Such  a  mistake  not  to  give  these  baga- 
telles in  modern  French,  don't  you  think  ?  So  I  played 
them  what  I  could  remember  of  Strauss's  Electra. 
Ravenscourt  was  terrible  to  see.  Fresh  enough  at  the 
beginning,  he  decayed  visibly  as  the  evening  wore  on. 
He  sat  on  a  sofa  with  one  leg  drawn  up  underneath 
him — rather  a  creaky  performance — and  wept  and 
wrung  his  hands  like  a  girl.  "I  can't  bear  it,"  he  cried, 
"I  can't  bear  it,"  and  the  tears  ran  down  his  raddled 
old  cheeks.  It  was  one  of  the  most  grotesque  and 
pitiful  sights  imaginable. 

But  the  most  extraordinary  thing  about  London  is 
its  fashionable  women,  whom  I  abhor  almost  as  much 
as  I  do  their  dogs.  Last  night  I  had  to  listen  through- 
out the  whole  of  dinner  to  prattle  about  cherie's  art- 
lessness  and  Toto's  taking  ways.  It  appears  that  two 
of  these  horrid  little  beasts  had  had  their  engagement 
announced  in  the  Society  papers  and  that  the  wedding 
had  been  a  very  smart  affair.  I  had  to  hear  how  the 
bridegroom  wore  a  priceless  confection  in  roscthe,  with 
ruchings  of  vieil  or,  and  a  bracelet  round  each  foot; 
how  the  bride  was  attired  in  maidish  satin  with  sprigs 
of  orange-flower.  She  wore  no  other  ornament,  sighed 
her  romantic  owner.  I  asked  her  whether  at  the  end 
of  the  tomfoolery  she  left  them  enfin  seuls.  But  these 
creatures  are  impervious.  .    .    . 

It  was  this  letter  which  brought  me  to  London. 

I  suppose  the  years  I  spent  there  were  sheer  waste. 


RESPONSIBILITY  273 

At  least  they  gave  me  nothing  better  than  my  last  three 
unsuccessful  novels  and  the  great  and  glorious  Mr 
Pig-Pig!  over  the  mysterious  authorship  of  which  all 
London  went  crazy  for  a  season. 

I  have  nothing  further  to  record  until  the  whole  of 
England  rises  to  her  great  occasion.  Sixteen  years  like 
an  evening  gone,  as  the  old  hymn  says. 


CHAPTER  V 


ALL  the  world  is  in  agreement  that  you  cannot 
indict  a  nation;  it  is  perhaps  not  so  obvious 
that  you  cannot  sympathise  with  one.  Not 
a  year  but  a  thousand  savages — that  is  races  whose 
civilisation  is  not  ours — commit  suicide  upon  the  graves 
of  their  ancestors — pleasing  matter  for  a  page  in  your 
traveller's  notebook.  The  Congo  native  waves  his 
tragic  stumps — we  debate  whether  to  sell  our  rubber 
shares.  And  there  is  this  matter  of  Belgium.  All  that 
I  knew  of  Belgium  towards  the  beginning  of  August 
1914  might  have  been  summed  up  in  a  couple  of  poets, 
a  hearsay  cathedral,  a  well-worn  tag  as  to  cockpits  and 
battle-grounds  and  the  recollection  that  it  was  before 
the  walls  of  Xamur  that  my  Uncle  Toby  received  his 
wound.  Was  it  for  this  handful  of  knowledge  that  I 
as  an  Englishman  was  passionately  eager  to  go  to  war? 
I  cannot  think  so.  Statesmen  have  invented  the  "idea" 
of  patriotism  as  a  defence  a^'inst  national  indiffer- 
ence, the  knightly  attitude  towards  little  nations  as  a 
protection  against  national  selfishno— .  We  are  such 
children  that  the  mere  official  record  of  the  martyrdom 
of  old  men  and  babes  leaves  us  cold  whilst  we  may 
be  moved  to  tears  with  the  same  recital  from  the  stage, 
some  tawdry  troll  draped  in  red.  yellow  and  black 
sending  us  cheering  to  our  duty.  "We  are  such  children 
that  we  cannot  grasp  woe  unless  we  see  a  picture  of  it, 

274 


RESPONSIBILITY  275 

nor  recognise  plain  obligation  without  some  sentimental 
masquerade.  Therefore  must  we  visualise  a  "little" 
Belgium  and  seek  our  patriotism  at  the  music-hall.  It 
is  perhaps  natural,  and  we  should  not  be  too  ready 
with  irony.  Let  those  who  would  declare  this  factitious 
emotion  to  be  confined  to  the  sentimental  remember 
that  hard-headed  men  of  business  were  supposed  to  look 
more  kindly  on  an  investment  when  presented  in  the 
guise  of  battered  tanks  and  mud-covered  guns.  In  a 
word  the  war  was  too  big  for  us  in  the  beginning  and, 
thank  God  for  our  peace  of  mind,  has  remained  too  big 
for  us  ever  since. 

In  the  early  days  little  that  was  not  trivial.  I  have 
two  impressions  and  two  only.  The  first  a  procession  of 
larrikins  waving  flags  and  blowing  trumpets  in  Picca- 
dilly, the  second  a  glimpse  of  soldiers  in  service  dress 
and  sailors  with  bundles  under  their  arms  emerging 
from  a  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Club  in  the  Waterloo 
Road.  "Good  luck,  Tommy!"  "Good  luck.  Jack!" 
and  the  war  had  begun. 

This  was  the  time  when  all  men  who  wanted  to 
think  deeply  and  wisely,  to  strike  the  just  mean  between 
the  guileless  fool  of  the  legend  and  the  honourable 
man  of  the  world,  looked  for  a  lead  to  the  columns  of 
The  National  Conscience.  How  blunderingly,  pitifully 
wrong  they  found  its  leaders,  in  mistakenness  how 
nobly  and  passionately  conceived.  The  writer  was  the 
stuff  the  apostles  were  made  of — so  much  leaped  at  you 
from  the  printed  sheet.  He  wore  his  complicated 
integrity  on  his  sleeve,  conducting  with  Jesuitical  artis- 
try an  argument  of  Quakerish  simplicity — as  who 
should  say  the  loose-fitting  soul  of  a  Don  Quixote  in 
supreme  possession  of  his  wits.  And  in  the  manipula- 
tion of  these  wits  the  very  genius  of  marshaldom.  Never 


276  RESPONSIBILITY 

was  argument  more  Christianly  devised  nor  more  in- 
genuously distorted. 

"It  is  admitted  by  the  interventionists — to  coin  a 
word  as  hateful  as  the  thing — that  this  country  has  no 
direct  interest  in  the  quarrel,  save  the  elementary  one 
of  seeing  fair  play  between  Belgrade  and  Vienna.  But 
that  is  not  a  British  interest  at  all.  Our  interest  is  fair 
play  in  England,  fair  play  in  our  coal-fields,  in  our 
cotton  mills  and  shipyards,  fair  play  in  the  slums  of 
English  cities  and  not  in  the  chancelleries  of  Europe. 
And  why,  even  granted  this  hypothetical  interest,  should 
the  Slav  be  so  much  dearer  to  us  than  the  Teuton  that 
on  his  behalf  we  should  tax  the  necessaries  of  the  poor 
to  famine  prices  and  the  income  of  the  rich  to  extinc- 
tion? For  let  us  recognise  that  this  is  the  ultimate 
meaning  of  war." 

O  noble  and  purblind  soul,  seeing  no  inch  beyond 
the  moment's  generosity !  Not  a  word  about  the  safety 
or  the  peril  of  England  with  Germany  mistress  of 
France  and  the  Channel  Ports. 

"Duty  and  interest  demand  that  this  country  shall 
not  make  itself  an  accessory  in  this  awful  crime  against 
reason  and  human  happiness.  The  burden  of  war  has 
always  fallen  and  must  always  fall  on  the  mass  of  the 
community,  on  the  people.  War  means  putting  back 
the  clock  of  progress  and  human  prosperity  for  a  hun- 
dred years.  War  will  take  away  from  our  people  all 
their  statesmen  have  given  them  since  the  days  of 
Pitt;  war  must  inevitably  throw  us  back  to  the  dark 
days  of  crime,  suffering  and  disease.     The  Government 


RESPONSIBILITY  277 

is  the  trustee  of  the  people.     It  cannot  sacrifice  the 
people's  welfare  on  the  altar  of  a  mistaken  chivalry." 

Brilliant  advocacy  that  can  attribute  its  own  pet 
weakness  to  the  other  side! 

"Until  we  actually  go  to  war  it  would  be  criminal 
for  any  Englishman  to  maintain  silence  who  believes, 
as  in  our  opinion  the  majority  still  do,  that  participa- 
tion in  this  war  would  be  against  the  honourable  duty 
that  we  owe  to  our  own  folk." 

O  gallant  debater,  what  evil  spirit  endowed  you  at 
birth  with  that  childlike  innocency  and  idealism  for 
ever  leading  you  astray  in  this  real  world  ? 

Lastly  the  grand  and  sober  amends: 

"England  has  declared  war,  and  discussion  is  over. 
Our  country  is  on  the  eve  of  battle  and  the  ranks  close 
up.     We  are  united  to  win." 

Tears  came  into  the  eyes  of  many  as  they  read  this 
declaration  of  conscience.  Into  my  own  eyes  as  I 
thought  of  old  Warden  sitting  in  his  midnight  den, 
less  like  a  great  editor  than  a  wistful  fisher  of  men, 
fingering  his  grey  beard  in  a  last  effort  to  save  the 
world.  Warden  is  the  last  disciple  of  a  disinterested 
faith ;  it  is  enough  that  a  cause  should  be  unpopular 
for  him  to  espouse  it  passionately.  He  has  belief  in  his 
fellow-man,  the  true  apostolic  fervour  and  the  zest  for 
martyrdom.  True  that  he  is  seldom  in  touch  with  life 
or  with  emotion  other  than  the  ascetic's,  that  he  lacks 
companions  in  nobility.  He  is  a  brooding  eagle  in- 
habiting an  eyrie,  blinded  by  the  glory  of  his  inward 


278  RESPONSIBILITY 

visions.  Distraught  and  wrapped  about  with  virginity, 
he  hears  voices.  .  .  . 

But  England  had  another  and  more  mischievous 
press  which  for  the  evil  that  it  would  do  lacked  the 
sanction  of  this  full-blown  ecstasy.  How  well  one  could 
foretell  its  babble.  That  the  German,  as  distinct  from 
the  Prussian,  is  at  heart  a  good  fellow;  that  if  it  be 
noble  and  fitting  to  die  for  one's  country  it  is  not  less 
noble  to  die  that  our  good  and  peace-loving  neighbour 
may  rid  himself  of  his  Prussian  yoke;  that  all  that 
downrightness  and  vigour  smacking  regrettably  of  the 
Nelson  touch  must,  by  irritating  neutrals,  be  to  our 
disadvantage  and  to  the  ultimate  good  of  the  enemy; 
that  blockades  are  only  successful  according  to  their 
elasticity;  that  a  military  decision  must  not  be  ex- 
pected ;  that  the  dismemberment  of  the  German  Empire 
would  be  a  calamity  to  Britain.  So  the  bulk  of  craven 
pacifism. 

Nor  can  I  think  more  favourably  of  those  Conserva- 
tive news  sheets  which  by  pretty  pictures  and  pithy 
anecdotes,  by  the  "vivid"  dispatches  of  their  war  cor- 
respondents, by  all  that  is  silly,  vulgar  and  inept,  were 
yet  to  force  our  politicians  to  the  winning  of  the  war. 

"Are  the  people,"  wro+e  Claud  Rodd  in  the  starchiest 
of  London  journals  "never  to  possess  a  newspaper 
written  in  their  proper  interests  and  combining  a  sense 
of  humanity,  a  broad  Imperial  outlook  and  the  fastidi- 
ous sincerity  of  The  National  Conscience?  Labour 
has  no  greater  failure  to  show  than  its  inability  to 
enrol  the  aristocratic  brain." 

§ii 
And  then  there  were  practical  things  to  be  done. 
Maps  to  be  bought,  large  scale  the  better  to  hearten 


RESPONSIBILITY  279 

us;  Serbia  and  Bulgaria  to  be  definitely  located;  ex- 
act computations  of  populations  and  armies ;  discussion 
as  to  the  propriety  of  throwing  our  little  handful  across 
the  Channel  or  keeping  it  for  protection  at  home; 
theories  of  defence  to  be  elaborated  hardly  less  naive 
than  the  epaulments,  ravelins,  half-moons,  curteins 
and  bastions  of  Corporal  Trim.  One  had  investments 
to  reckon  up,  and  it  became  matter  for  congratulation 
that  the  Midland  Eailway  really  does  stick  to  the  centre 
of  England  instead  of  nosing  dangerously  round  the 
Eastern  Coast.  Mentally  one  cut  one's  losses  in  the 
Diisseldorf  People's  Palace,  the  Moonlight-on-the-Alster 
Soul-Awakening  Steamboat  Promenade  Company,  and 
the  Nuremberg  Up-to-date  Mediaeval-Restoring  and 
Beer-Gardening  Club.  And  one  went  to  the  bank  and 
exchanged  gold  for  little  slips  of  paper.  Throughout 
this  queer  texture  of  patriotic  ardour  and  practical 
calculation  there  would  run  ever  and  anon  the  anxious 
thought — what  new  gun,  explosive  or  monstrous  device 
could  Germany  possess  that  she  dared  defy  us  ? 

And  then  Liege  fell. 

And  Namur. 

About  this  time  I  received  through  a  round-about 
source  the  following  letter  from  Reinecke: — 

Do  you  remember,  Ned,  an  old  letter  of  yours  about 
the  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  and  how  England  and 
Germany  were  strong  enough  to  beat  France  if  she 
should  grow  too  proud  and  Russia  if  she  allowed  herself 
to  growl  too  loudly.  And  I  replied  you  not  to  write 
any  such  nonsense,  as  two  intelligent  people  did  not 
need  to  bother  their  honourable  heads  upon  so  bar- 
barous a  thing  as  war.  And  now  this  barbarity  has 
come  true  and  we  must  cut  each  other's  throats  like 


280  RESPONSIBILITY 

butchers  who  have  lost  their  honourable  senses.  It  ia 
too  grotesque;  I  do  not  know  whether  to  laugh  or 
cry.  My  relations  are  very  serious  about  it  all.  "Curt," 
they  have  said  to  me  solemnly,  "when  you  have  in- 
vaded England  already,  it  will  be  better  that  you  do 
not  kill  your  English  friends  and  to  torture  them  only 
a  little.  .  .  ."I  am  not  afraid  that  if  the  English 
take  me  prisoner  I  shall  be  tortured  very  much.  You 
do  not  understand  war.  .  .  .  Germans  make  war 
thoroughly,  like  Wagner  wrote  his  operas.  .  .  . 

What  is  so  terrible  is  that  I  do  not  know  who  is 
right  and  that  it  does  not  matter.  I  am  a  German 
now  and  must  think  German.  Those  mad  Englishmen 
who  were  on  the  side  of  the  Boers  in  your  Boer  War, 
do  they  still  exist  ?  I  suppose  they  must  be  finding 
that  Germany  has  a  lot  of  right  on  her  side.  We  are 
stronger  than  you;  a  pro-Englander  would  not  be  al- 
lowed to  live.  Yet  there  are  things  in  this  question 
which  could  make  me  take  an  English  view  of  it,  only 
I  was  a  soldier  before  the  war  and  have  learned  to 
discipline  the  mind  as  well  as  the  arms  and  legs.  And 
therefore  I  must  be  German.  There  is  nothing  left 
for  me  now  except  the  triumph  of  the  Fatherland. 
Do  not  smile  at  this  word ;  it  stands  for  a  good  German 
thing.  And  yet  though  we  must  beat  England,  there 
are  a  great  many  things  in  your  country  which  I  must 
love.  There  are  your  beautiful  English  villages  and 
your  gentle  English  ways.  When  people  are  not  stupid 
there  is  no  need  to  make  rules  and  to  order  them 
about.  All  English  people  are  like  the  old  men  in 
Maeterlinck ;  they  have  lived  a  great  deal  and  have 
learned  something.  Germans  are  like  the  children  in 
Maeterlinck  crying  in  the  dark,  and  so  they  hold  the 


RESPONSIBILITY  281 

Emperor's  hand.     It  does  not  matter  that  he  should 
bo  a  kemach ;  he  is  the  master.  .  .  . 

But  there  is  much  in  Germany  that  the  English  do 
not  understand.  Wo,  too,  have  our  beautiful  villages 
and  pleasant  customs.  It  is  too  favourable  to  judge  of 
Germany  by  its  Jews  alone,  but  even  the  inferior 
peoples,  when  you  know  them,  have  to  be  loved  in 
spito  of  their  arrogant  bull-necks.  They  will  die,  not 
because  to  die  is  a  fine  thing,  but  because  they  are 
Germans.  .  .  ." 

One  evening  Rodd  heaved  into  my  room. 

"I  am  not  easy  about  it  all,"  he  said. 

"Any  news  to-night?" 

"They've  sunk  some  cruisers  in  the  Channel.  Old 
ones.  And  they're  precious  nearly  through  Belgium. 
But  that  isn't  the  point.  I  can't  stand  this."  And 
ho  indicated  the  wet  street  along  which  bedraggled 
humanity  was  marching  in  fours. 

"Their  clothes'll  stink  when  they  get  in,  you  know. 
Can't  you  see  their  boots,  and  their  feet  ?"  He  paused 
and  after  a  time  went  on  savagely : 

"I  don't  want  to  join  and  I've  no  excuse.  I  haven't 
had  my  whack  of  fun  yet  and  I  don't  want  to  be  killed. 
I'm  fit  enough,  I'm  not  too  old,  and  I  don't  think 
I'm  really  a  coward.  But  I  don't  want  to  leave  all 
this.    I've  written  to  Old  Morality  about  it." 

"And  what  does  Mark  say  ?" 

"What  you'd  expect.  Something  about  war  being 
a  hellish  business  and  every  man  a  blackguard  if  he 
doesn't  take  a  hand.  He  goes  on  to  say  that  he  has 
a  wife  and  family,  a  heart  murmur,  and  nearly  fifty 
years  to  boot  and  that  he's  considering.  He's  afraid 
he'll    have    to   be    content    with    'taking   an    interest' 


282  RESPONSIBILITY 

in  something  or  other,  in  making  toast  in  a  ward  or 
looking  after  soldiers'  wives." 

I  showed  him  Reinecke's  letter. 

"Hope  he  comes  through/'  he  replied  after  he  had 
glanced  at  it.  "But  I've  no  time  for  him  at  the 
moment.  It's  Claud  Rodd  that's  worrying  me.  He'll 
have  to  go.  Bissett's  gone.  He'll  be  a  Brigadier  in  no 
time — he's  the  clean-living  sort,  you  know,  plays  with 
a  straight  hat,  Public  School  all  over  him.  That's 
not  a  sneer.  He'll  do  well.  He's  no  fool ;  the  men 
will  like  him  and  he'll  freeze  on  to  all  the  forlorn  hopes 
going.  I've  just  had  a  letter  in  which  he  says  he's 
expecting  his  commission  at  any  minute.  Tells  a  story 
about  his  sergeant-major.  It  seems  he  made  the  mis- 
take of  addressing  the  fellow  as  'chum.'  'If  it's  a 
blasted  chum  you  want,'  said  the  swine,  carefully  spit- 
ting on  Reggie's  boots — you  know  the  polish  he'd  have 
on  'em — 'get  behind  them  bloody  latrines.  You'll  find 
a  bleeding  dawg  there  and  you  can  chum  up  with  him.'  " 

"You  can't  run  an  army  without  discipline,"  I  said. 

"Of  course  you  can't,  and  that's  the  exasperating 
part  of  it.  But  who  wants  to  run  an  army  anyhow, 
or  to  be  within  a  thousand  miles  of  one?  Abolish 
your  Liberals  and  Conservatives  and  bring  in  your 
Socialists,  not  in  this  country  but  all  the  world  over, 
and  there'd  be  no  need  for  armies.  You  can't  be  a 
soldier  and  a  man.  'I  obey,  therefore  I  exist'  is  the 
theory.  The  military  mind  thinks  the  whole  of  life 
is  contained  in  getting  scuttlers  and  hooligans  and  you 
and  me  to  bob  and  curtsy  to  it.  Morally  it's  the  knout 
they  wield.  Why,  man,  they've  the  right  to  search  you 
for  lice,  inspect  your  feet,  appraise  your  teeth,  to  go 
paddling  in  your  neck  with  their  damned  fingers.  All 
under  the  pretence  that  war's  a  great  game.     There 


RESPONSIBILITY  283 

ain't  five  recruits  in  a  hundred  who  have  any  idea  of 
what  war  is.  Or  if  they  have  that  makes  the  obligation 
on  us  all  the  greater.  They're  our  dregs  and  they 
show  us  the  wav." 

I  demurred  to  dregs. 

"Anyhow  it's  going  to  be  dull.  There'll  be  months 
of  training,  of  being  herded  together  like  cattle,  and 
my  publishers  will  expect  me  to  write  a  pretty  book 
about  it  for  the  drawing-room  table.    Good-bye." 

"You're  not  going "  I  began. 

"Going  to  think  about  it  a  bit  longer,"  he  replied. 


m 


A  few  days  later  Kodd  came  to  see  me  again  and  at 
once  returned  to  the  charge. 

"It's  not  fair  to  the  chaps  who've  joined  up  that  we 
should  look  upon  them  sentimentally.  War  is  more 
than  an  emotion;  it's  a  big,  stupid  thing  and  I  can't 
bring  myself  to  look  upon  it  heroically.  All  fighting 
isn't  heroism,  nor  all  dying  heroic.  There's  damp  huts 
and  pneumonia,  the  whole  inefficient  rigmarole.  And 
yet  I've  got  to  join.  I  shall  empty  latrines  and  try 
not  to  write  comic  articles  about  it.  I  shall  hate  the 
whole  business,  the  fuss,  the  patriotism — oh,  above  all 
I  shall  hate  the  patriotism,  the  voicing  of  it,  I  mean. 
And  I  shall  want  to  loathe  all  these  tramps  and  louts 
and  I  shan't  be  able  to.  Then  I  shall  want  to  get  to 
know  them  and  again  I  shan't  be  able  to.  My  tongue 
won't  be  theirs;  I  shall  be  outside  their  lingo." 

He  stood  by  the  window  drumming  on  the  pane. 

"I  wish  they'd  choose  any  other  street  to  march 
down,  damn  them !    Don't  they  look  cold  ?" 

I  have  a  great  power  of  silence  and  waited  to  let 
him  have  his  say  out. 


284  RESPONSIBILITY 

"There's  a  fellow  looking  up  at  your  windows,"  he 
broke  off  suddenly.  "He's  been  hanging  about  for 
some  time.     Any  enemies,  Ned  ?" 

"Lots,"  I  answered.     "What  does  he  look  like  ?" 

"Shabby  and  wet.     Anyhow  he's  rung." 

After  a  minute  or  so  my  old  housekeeper  announced 
that  a  young  man  wanted  to  see  Mr  Marston  and  re- 
fused to  give  his  name. 

"  'E  looks  'arf -starved,  poor  dear,  and  that  miserable." 

"Show  him  up,  Mrs  Lyon,  and  bring  tea." 

The  young  man  came  in,  blinked  a  little  at  the  light, 
and  stood  by  the  door  twisting  the  corner  of  his  sodden 
cap.  A  hint  of  the  gentleman,  the  cut  of  the  clerk,  a 
suspicion  of  defiant  misery.  I  was  totally  unprepared 
for  what  was  to  come. 

"Which  of  you  is  Mr  Marston  ?"  he  asked. 

''Wait  a  bit,"  said  Claud,  thrusting  in  before  I  could 
speak.  "What's  your  name,  my  lad,  and  what's  your 
business  ?" 

"I  want  to  know  which  of  you  is  my  father,"  he 
replied. 

"By  God !"  said  Claud  rising,  "this  is  up  to  you, 
Ned." 

"Sit  down,  man."     And  Claud  sat  down. 

"So  you  are  Mr  Marston  ?"  the  boy  went  on  slowly, 
turning  to  me. 

"That  is  my  name,"  I  replied.  "Come  in  and  let 
me  give  you  something.  You  look  cold.  Pull  your- 
self together.     We'll  talk  afterwards." 

The  truth  was  that  it  was  I  who  stood  in  need  of 
being  pulled  together. 

The  boy  came  into  the  room  and  took  a  seat  by  the 
fire  whilst  I  busied  myself  with  whiskies  and  soda. 

And  now  I  wonder  whether  I  owe  the  reader  an 


RESPONSIBILITY  285 

apology.  I  believe  I  owe  myself  one.  For  I  deter- 
mined, when  I  set  out,  to  deal  only  in  essentials,  to 
eliminate  all  those  lightings  and  re-lightings  of  cigars, 
dispositions  of  hats  and  gloves,  triflings  with  tea-cups 
and  glasses  which  take  up  so  much  time  and  are  such 
a  bore  to  recount.  I  wanted  to  get  at  essential  truth 
and  now  I  find  that  for  a  while  this  meeting  with  my 
son  resolves  itself  into  offers  of  tea  and  cigarettes.  The 
truth  is  that  I  felt  the  need  of  gaining  time.  The  boy 
very  obviously  held  himself  on  the  defensive,  accepting 
the  proffered  hospitality  out  of  courtesy. 

After  a  little  while  during  which  I  watched  him  as 
narrowly  as  I  decently  might,  looking  for  Clare  whose 
son  alone  he  must  be,  I  said : 

"'Now,  my  boy,  let  us  clear  all  this  up.  Will  you 
tell  me  your  name  ?" 

"Tremblow,  sir." 

"Never  mind  about  the  'sir/  Edward  Tremblow?" 
I  asked. 

"It  was  Edward.  I  changed  it  to  Dick.  I've  never 
been  beholden  to  anybody." 

I  had  little  doubt  about  his  being1  Clare's  child.  The 
honest  grey  eyes,  the  quick  turn  of  the  head  spoke  of 
Clare  and  I  felt  the  blood  rush  to  my  face  and  my  heart 
to  thump  and  beat  like  a  sledge-hammer.  I  began  to 
tremble  as  on  the  eve  of  some  happening.  I  had  the 
sense  of  peril,  of  the  tension  that  goes  before  some 
desperate  leap,  of  the  age-long  second  that  precedes 
and  determines.    , 

"And  your  mother  ?"  I  heard  mvself  saving. 

"Dead  twelve  years  ago.  I  hardly  remember  her. 
You've  nothing  to  fear  from  either  of  us." 

"Good  God,  man,"  I  cried,  "I  fear  nothing  this  side 
the  grave  except  my  own  nerves,  and  nothing  at  all 


286  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  other."  An  outburst  sufficiently  silly,  hut  I  was 
excited. 

"Tell  us,"  said  Claud  in  his  most  level,  matter-of- 
fact  tone,  "tell  Mr  MarsLon  why  you've  come  to  him 
now  and  not  before." 

"I  want  to  know  who  brought  me  into  all  this," 
he  replied,  waving  his  arm  vaguely  and  with  a  gesture 
comprehending  more  than  the  room  and  the  street. 
"I  want  to  know  at  whose  instigation" — I  caught  Rodd's 
wondering  eye — "I  have  suffered — and  endured  and  en- 
joyed.    Oh  yes,  I've  enjoyed  too." 

He  looked  at  his  boots  and  the  knees  of  his  trousers. 

"My  mother  died  when  I  was  about  five  or  six.  She 
was  married  then  and  her  husband  used  to  thrash  us 
both.  Her  oftener  than  me.  One  evening  he  put  us 
out  into  the  street  and  wo  walked  about  all  niffht.  She 
took  pneumonia  a  week  later.  I  remember  the  man 
crving  a  lot  after  Bhe  was  dead.  I  don't  know  his 
name  and  I've  never  seen  him  since.  I  was  sent  to 
an  orphanage  near  Reading." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"Poor  girl,"  I  heard  Claud  whisper. 

"Go  on,"  T  said. 

"On  the  morning  of  her  death  my  mother  called  me 
to  her  and  said:     'Xed,  I'm  not  long  for  this  world.'  " 

"Did  she  really  say  that?"  1  asked,  the  writer  and 
phrasemaker  in  me  damnably  agog. 

"I  don't  remember  the  exact  word-."  he  returned. 
"She  felt  she  hadn't  lone  to  live  and  said  so.     What's 

■ 

wrong  with  the  words  ?" 

"Nothing's  wrong,"  said  Claud.  "Mr  Marston  wants 
to  bo  quite  sure  of  understanding  your  mother's  mean- 


ing" 


"Go  on,"  I  urged. 


RESPONSIBILITY  287 

"She  then  told  me  that  my  father  was  not  the  man 
who  lived  with  us  but  the  Mr  Marston  who  wrote  the 
books.  She  wrote  the  name  on  a  piece  of  paper  and 
told  me  to  come  to  you  if  ever  I  wanted  you,  but  not 
unless.  'Your  father  was  good  to  me,'  she  said,  'good 
according  to  his  lights,  and  remember,  Ned,  I've  no- 
complaints  to  make  and  have  never  made  any.  Don't 
forget  that,  Ned.'    And  I've  not  forgotten,  as  you  see." 

We  sat  silent  for  a  moment. 

"Are  you  rich,  either  of  you  ?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"Poor  as  a  church  mouse,"  said  Rodd  promptly. 

"More  than  I  know  what  to  do  with,"  from  me. 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  returned  simply. 

"Don't  you "  I  began,  and  then  I  saw  the  old 

stubborn  look  which  used  to  be  Clare's  come  into  his 
eyes.  He  gave  a  shrug  of  contempt  and  my  question 
died  away. 

"But,  my  dear  Mr  Tremblow,  won't  you  tell  us, 
won't  you  tell  your  father" — here  he  looked  at  me  and 
I  nodded — "what  it  is  you  do  want?" 

"I  want  acknowledgment,"  said  the  boy,  "just  that 
and  no  more.  I  don't  want  sympathy  and  a  decent 
kindness  and  all  the  charitable  bag  of  tricks.  I've 
earned  my  own  way  up  to  now.  I've  picked  up  a  living, 
not  much  of  a  one,  but  a  living,  in  a  shop  or  two, 
in  offices,  in  a  goods  yard,  down  at  the  docks.  I've 
been  dresser  to  a  fashionable  actor  and  I've  sold  papers. 
Sometimes  I've  sunk,  sometimes  I've  risen,  but  always 
I've  been  master  of  my  soul.  I've  nothing  to  be  ashamed 
of  and  it  has  been  life  all  the  time.  But  now  I  want 
acknowledgment,  not  before  the  world,  as  they  say,  but 
to  my  own  face.  Oh,  I've  not  come  here  to  make  a  fuss. 
I  know  how  men  use  women.  I've  seen  it  from  the 
street,   and  life's  different  when  you've  seen  it  from 


288  RESPONSIBILITY 

the  street.  It  doesn't  look  at  all  the  same  as  it  does  to 
you  people  in  houses,  and  yet  I'm  not  satisfied.  There's 
not  enough  reason  for  me.  The  world  beats  about  me  as 
it  beats  about  every  lad  that  has  parents  who  want  him, 
and  I  feel  that  I  have  not  been  wanted.  I  lie  awake  at 
night,  and  say  to  myself:  'You  are  not  wanted.'  I 
lie  awake  and  feel  that  I've  stolen  my  right  to  a  share  in 
all  this." 

"All  this?"  from  Claud. 

"I'm  joining  up  in  a  day  or  two  and  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  before  I  joined  I  would  try  to  find  my 
father,  in  case  he  wanted  me  now.  Ever  so  little  would 
do.  And  then  I  was  curious;  I  am  curious.  There  are 
a  hundred  things  I  want  to  knew,  thai  I've  puzzled 
over  and  can't  find  an  answer  to.  I  want  to  know 
whether  having  no  father  takes  from  me  the  right  to 
a  child.  I  want  to  know  whether  marriage  matters, 
whether  if  I  come  through  this  I  shall  have  anything 
to  hand  on.  Do  I  begin  a  new  race  ox  end  an  old  one, 
or  do  I  just  not  count  at  all  ?  For  if  I  don't  count  then 
I've  less  to  offer  than  any  other  of  the  lads." 

He  make  a  quick  change  of  ground. 

"Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  live  on  twenty-two 
shillings  a  week  ?"  he  asked.  "I  was  getting  that  when 
this  happened." 

He  pulled  out  of  his  pocket  a  bit  of  paper  with 
some  figures  on  it  and  put  it  into  our  hands,  We  could 
see  that  it  was  a  weekly  calculation  of  ways  and  7iir;ms 
telling  of  bare  lodgings  and  meagre  shovelfuls  of  coal, 
of  scanty  clothing  and  insufficient  meal-. 

"Do  you  realise  what  twenty-two  shillings  a  week 
means?  It  means  that  if  you  want  to  buy  a  book  yon 
have  to  choose  between  having  no  fire  or  no  breakfast 
for  a  week.     It  means  that  you  can  hardly  aiford  to  be 


RESPONSIBILITY  289 

clean,  that  you  haven't  the  money  to  get  drunk  when 
you're  wretched.  And  then  there's  Saturday  and  Sun- 
day to  be  got  through.  Do  you  know  I've  hung  about 
the  Park  on  Sunday  nights  for  hours  together  listen- 
ing to  the  speakers  to  keep  myself  from  thinking.  I'm 
afraid  of  my  own  thoughts;  I'm  afraid  of  loneliness 
and  that's  why  I've  come  here." 

"Where  are  you  living  ?"  I  asked. 

"That's  my  affair,"  he  answered.  "It  isn't  money 
I  want  and  it  isn't  meals  and  it  isn't  clothes.  I  just 
want  to  feel  before  I  go  out  there  that  I'm  not  alone 
in  the  world.  Perhaps  I  shan't  come  back.  There's 
thousands  won't  come  back." 

"I'm  going  too,"  said  Podd.  He  told  me  afterwards 
that  it  was  at  that  moment  that  he  made  up  his  mind. 
The  other  gave  a  short  laugh. 

"You'll  go  as  an  officer,"  he  said.  "I'll  be  your 
servant  if  you  like." 

"What's  moving  you  to  join  ?"  Podd  asked  curiously. 
"What  has  England  done  for  you  ?" 

"Good  Lord,  man,  it's  not  a  debt  I'm  paying.  And 
yet  it  is  in  a  way.  I'm  joining  for  the  sake  of  the 
beauty  in  the  world  that  you  comfortable  folk  never 
see.  You  don't  know  how  lovely  the  Park  is  when  you 
are  at  dinner  and  one  can  be  alone  with  the  reddening 
trees;  you  don't  even  know  the  feel  of  a  good  meal. 
You've  never  tightened  your  belt  to  listen  to  music; 
you  get  into  fine  clothes  instead.  The  whole  world  is 
full  of  beauty  for  those  who  are  poor  enough  to  see 
it,  though  it  may  be  it's  only  our  dreams.  They  say 
all  visionaries  are  half  starved.  Anyhow  whether  the 
beauty  is  there  or  whether  I  only  imagine  it,  it's  there 
for  me.  I  want  to  do  something  beautiful  in  return 
and  there's  so  little  I  can  do  except  give  my  life.     I 


290  RESPONSIBILITY 

can't  write  and  I  can't  paint  and  I'm  worth  exactly 
twenty-two  shillings  a  week.  What  is  there  in  front 
of  me?  Twenty-five  shillings,  thirty,  then  perhaps  a 
couple  of  pounds  and  a  pittance  at  the  end  if  I  strike 
a  generous  lot.  Well,  here's  the  great  chance.  It's 
the  great  chance,  I  take  it,  for  all  us  clerks.  At  least 
I  shall  he  free,  and  by  God  I've  had  enough  of  being 
hired." 

After  that  he  would  not  say  another  word.  Suddenly 
he  got  up  and  held  out  his  hand  which  I  grasped 
awkwardly  enough. 

"I'll  come  again,  if  I  may?" 

"I  want  you  to  come  whenever  you  like,"  I  said  and 
refrained  from  saying  more.  I  felt  that  this  was  to  be 
a  great  thing  in  my  life  and  that  I  must  not  squander 
it  in  effusiveness. 

Besides  I  wanted  more  time  for  thought  Reparation 
had  waited  twenty  years;  the  urgency  was  not  one 
of  minutes. 

The  boy  turned  to  TJodd. 

"Are  you  always  hen'  \n  he  asked. 

"No,"  said  Claud,  "but  you  can  call  on  me,  Praed 
Street,  -17a,  over  the  shop." 

"You're  not  bound  to  ask  me,"  said  Tremblow,  with 
rude  graciousness,  "but  I'd  like  you  to." 

"To-morrow  then,  about  this  time.  And  we'll  come 
on  to  you  afterwards.  Ned." 

The  boy  nodded  and  was  gone. 

"Had  you  never  thought  of  all  this?"  Claud  asked 
abruptly,  as  the  door  closed. 

"Yes.  But  always  in  connection  with  blackmail  and 
that  sort  of  thing." 

"He's  a  gentlemen.     I'm  not  being  snobbish." 

"That  makes  it  all  the  worse.     The  classic  thing  is 


RESPONSIBILITY  291 

that  you're  responsible  for  some  wretched  creature  of 
the  gutter.  That  has  never  moved  me  greatly.  Either 
you  don't  know,  or  if  you  do,  money  puts  it  more  or 
less  right.  But  to  have  brought  a  fine,  sensitive  soul 
into  the  world  with  all  its  possibilities  of  misery — 
that's  hell.  And  yet  it's  fine  too.  It's  a  wonderful 
thing.     I  don't  in  the  least  grasp  it." 

"Better  you  shouldn't.  You'll  go  to  extremes,  as 
usual." 

"I  want  him,"  I  said. 

"He's  wanted  you  any  time  these  twenty  years. 
Better  be  humble,  Ned." 

"And  then  there's  Clare,"  I  began. 

"I  don't  think  she  comes  in.  Suppose,  Ned,  we  use 
a  little  of  that  mental  honesty  you're  so  plaguey  handy 
with  when  there's  no  need  for  it.  You  finished  with 
Clare  ever  so  long  ago.  You  haven't  thought  of  her 
these  ten  years,  probably  twenty.  You've  outgrown  her. 
You  outgrew  her  long  ago.  You're  trying  to  put  the 
clock  back.  You're  sentimentalising.  You  wouldn't 
know  what  to  do  with  her  if  you  had  her  now.  Con- 
fess you  don't  want  her  now." 

"I  don't,"  I  said  after  a  pause.  "And  it's  humiliat- 
ing." 

"It's  natural  and  inevitable,"  declared  Eodd,  "and 
humiliation  doesn't  come  in." 

And  then  we  settled  down  to  thrash  the  matter  out. 
We  went  over  the  whole  ground,  the  noble  heights  and 
the  treacherous  fall.  We  talked  of  passion  brooking 
no  hindrance  and  seeking  no  excuse,  of  "youthful  in- 
discretion," of  base  appetite.  We  recalled  Westrom's 
"It  must  be  tremendous  fun  to  be  a  rake;  I  haven't 
any  doubt  that  marriage  with  companionship  and  chil- 
dren is  finer."     We  recalled  our  youthful  assertion  as 


292  RESPONSIBILITY 

to  the  one  indisputable  thing  in  heaven  and  earth :  the 
will  for  continuance. 

"Ah!"  said  Claud,  "but  we  mustn't  confuse  father- 
hood with  indulgence.  Civilised  man  is  under  an  obli- 
gation according  to  the  code  of  his  kind,  the  English- 
man according  to  the  English  code,  though  it's  less 
amusing  than  his  neighbour's.  It  isn't  fair  in  the 
most  elementary  sense  of  fairness  to  keep  only  such 
clauses  of  the  civil  contract  as  are  convenient.  All  this 
doesn't  prevent  its  being  better  to  bo  the  natural  son 
of  a  great  man  than  heir  to  the  village  grocer.  It  was 
so  in  the  days  of  Falconbridge  and  will  be  so  again. 
The  slur  of  illegitimacy  is  a  purely  Victorian  interlude. 
It  is  Victorian  simply  because  it  is  understood  in  the 
wrong  way.  Illegitimacy  is  to  be  reproved  not  as  a 
breaking  of  a  mystical  law  but  as  a  breach  of  the  social 
contract.  Do  you  remember  the  Twinney  woman,  the 
vicar's  wife  at  Crawley  Bridge  Vf 

I  nodded. 

"Well,  she  had  in  one  corner  of  her  drawing-room 
a  statue  called  Maternity — a  mother  exhibiting  her 
child  and  her  wedding  ring  with  equal  pride.  That's 
Victorianism.  "What  isn't  Victorianism  is  the  realisa- 
tion that  the  slur  is  on  the  father,  not  on  the  child; 
and,  of  course,  principally  on  tin  -  >re  of  desertion. 
You  weren't  technically  guilty  of  desertion  but  you 
would  have  been." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "I  suppose  I  would,  and  I  can't 
get  the  old-fashioned  idea  of  punishment  out  of  my 
head.  It's  so  monstrously  unfair  that  I  should  get  off 
scot-free." 

"Oh,  but  you  won't,  not  by  a  long  chalk,"  retorted 
Claud.  "I  know  you,  Ned ;  you're  going  to  make  a 
great  fuss  of  this  fellow  and  get  infernally  fond  and 


RESPONSIBILITY  293 

proud  of  him  and  talk  about  devoting  your  whole  lifo 
to  him.  This  may  mean  as  much  as  half-an-hour  a 
day,  hut  you'll  think  it's  your  whole  life.  And  you'll 
be  tremendously  happy  about  it  all  until  you  realise 
that  you're  just  a  common  thief  reaping  where  you 
haven't  sown.  Your,  fatherhood  wasn't  utterly  base 
but  it  wasn't  considered.  You  never  gave  the  boy  a 
ha'porth  of  care,  you  had  none  of  the  anxiety  of  him, 
you  hardly  knew  he  existed.  You're  a  tremendous 
fellow,  Ned,  and  you'll  play  the  father  tremendously. 
But  you're  a  filcher  of  happiness  all  the  same.  Affec- 
tion and  not  generosity  is  the  only  reparation;  affec- 
tion is  what  you'll  have  to  give.  And  if  you  can 
manage  that  you  may  bo  able  to  forgive  yourself  for 
having  been  found  with  your  hand  in  the  sack  of 
common  happiness.  It's  your  own  responsibility ;  no- 
body else  can  forgive  you,  or  help  you.  Nobody  in 
fact  cares  twopence  about  it." 

"Thank  God,"  I  replied,  "that  there  is  a  sack  of 
common  happiness  anyhow.  I'm  going  to  lay  my  hand 
on  every  ounce  it  contains.  I've  got  something  better 
to  live  for  now  than  I've  had  for  twenty  years." 

"It'll  bo  selfishness  all  the  same,"  returned  Rodd, 
"but  perhaps  selfishness  of  a  better  sort." 

This  was  the  first  of  many  conversations  in  this 
strain. 

§iv 

And  then  we  both  began  to  see  quite  a  lot  of  Dick. 
The  timid  bluster  of  his  first  visit  had  given  place 
to  a  shy  confidence.  At  times  he  would  hardly  utter 
a  word  and  at  others  would  deliver  himself  of  a  spate 
of  eager,  scurrying  ardours.    I  found  in  him  a  Socialist 


294.  RESPONSIBILITY 

of  my  own  impatient,  over-emphatic  order.  He  knew 
something  of  music,  a  little  of  pictures  and  a  great 
deal  about  birds  and  butterflies.  I  did  not  ask  how 
in  a  London  suburb  one  acquires  natural  history.  He 
harped  continually  upon  the  string  of  consideration  for 
others;  there  wasn't  a  generosity  he  didn't  jump  to. 
Claud  took  to  him  to  an  altogether  extraordinary  degree. 

One  day  Dick  said  shyly:  "Won't  you  both  come 
to  tea  at  my  place?''  And  he  gave  an  address  near 
Victoria  Station. 

"I  don't  know  whether  he's  in  or  out,"  said  the  little 
drab  who  opened  the  door.  "We  never  know  when 
Mr  Tremblow  is  in.  A  very  quiet  gentleman  is  Mr 
Tremblow.  I  know  he's  expecting,  'cos  he  ordered  a 
second  jug  o'  milk  this  morning.     Fifth  floor." 

We  mounted  the  stairs  to  a  little  attic  on  the  door 
of  which  was  pinned  a  neat  injunction  to  go  in  and  wait. 
The  room  was  scrupulously  clean,  the  furniture  a 
truckle  bed,  a  dressing-table  that  might  have  originally 
been  orange  boxes,  a  simple  wash-stand,  a  small  table 
and  two  or  three  chairs.  In  a  corner  a  pair  of  dumb- 
bells and  an  old  cricket-bat.  On  the  mantelpiece  one 
or  two  photographs,  apparently  of  friends  at  an  office. 
On  the  walls  several  cheap  pictures  suggesting  a  reach- 
ing out  after  self-improvement,  chiefly  prints  of  Watts 
in  didactic  mood.  On  a  tinv  shelf  an  odd  dozen  of 
books  included  Unto  this  Last,  Richard  Feverel,  Treas- 
ure Island,  Arthur  Morrison's  Tales  of  Mean  Streets, 
Tono-Bungay,  Morris's  Nexus  from,  Nowhere,  two 
stories  by  Gissing  and  a  Shakespeare.  But  what  struck 
us  most  of  all  was  a  number  of  lay-texts  written  out 
in  the  same  handwriting  as  that  of  the  piece  of  paper  on 
the  door  and  fastened  to  the  wall  by  drawing-pins  in 
places  convenient  for  reading.     Under  the  gas-bracket 


RESPONSIBILITY  295 

Henley's  familiar  verses  anent  the  captaincy  of  his 
soul. 

"He  quoted  that,  if  you  remember,"'  said  Claud. 

Next  to  the  shaving  mirror  Stevenson's  Under  the 
Wide  and  Starry  Sky  and  one  of  his  prayers.  We 
noted  also  the  familiar  exhortation  to  kindliness  "Since 
I  shall  not  pass  this  way  again,"  and  a  verse  by  Miss 
Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox. 

So  many  Gods,  so  many  creeds, 
So  many  paths  that  wind  and  wind, 
When  just  the  art  of  being  kind 
Is  all  the  sad  world  needs. 

And  then  this  sentimentality: 

Go  thou  thy  way  and  I  go  mine, 

Apart,  yet  not  afar; 
Only  a  thin  veil  hangs  between 

The  pathways  where  we  are. 

"And   God  keep   watch   'tween   thee  and  me" 
This  is  my  prayer; 
He  looks  thy  way,  He  looketh  mine. 
And  keeps  us  near. 

I  sigh  sometimes  to  see  thy  face, 

But  since  that  may  not  be 
I'll  leave  thee  to  the  care  of  Him 

Who  cares  for  thee  and  me. 

A  tap  at  the  door  and  Dick  came  in.  After  explain- 
ing that  he  had  been  detained  at  the  office  he  said  with 
a  certain  dignity :  "Xow  let  me  make  you  welcome." 
And  waving  his  hand  at  the  table:  "It's  a  bit  sub- 
stantial for  afternoon  tea  in  your  world,  but  it's  my 
best  meal,  vou  know." 

The  substantial  things  were  in  tins,  sardines  and  a 
tongue. 

"Where  I  teas,  I  dines,"  said  Rodd.  "I'm  going  out 
for  a  bottle  of  whisky." 


296  RESPONSIBILITY 

It  was  the  first  money  we  had  been  allowed  to  spend 
on  the  boy  and  I  do  not  think  he  would  have  accepted 
it  from  me.  He  made  no  sort  of  difficulties  with  Iiodd 
however. 

As  soon  as  the  door  had  closed  Dick  turned  and 
said  point-blank : 

"I  think  you're  a  good  man,  although  you've  been 
a  selfish  one.  I've  got  selfish  instincts  too,  but  I'm 
fighting  them.  I  don't  want  you  to  bother  about  being 
my  father.     "We're  just  friends.     Will  that  do?" 

"Nothing  would  suit  me  better,"  I  said  as  simply 
as  possible. 

"Tell  me  what  you  think  of  my  pictures." 

And  we  fell  to  discussing  whether  Watts  really  does 
lack  colour  or  whether  our  demands  are  too  gaudy. 

"Of  course  he's  got  no  colour."  Baid  Claud,  coming 
back,  "he's  just  dull.  Dull  and  dingy  and  drab  like 
life  at  Crawley  Bridge.  Do  you  remember  Numero 
Ving*t  Boulevard  Croix  de  Sh  Mom,  Ned?     I'm 

not  sure  that  that  wasn't,  the  best  time  of  our  lives. 
Youth  !    The  golden  fling,  you  know." 

"I  think  the  war  is  the  golden  fling,"  said  Dick. 
"In  the  national  sense." 

It  was  an  unforgettable  meal.  Tn  some  way  the 
boy  had  got  to  calling  Claud  "Rodd."  Me  he  invari- 
ably addressed  as  "Mi-  Marston."  It  ed  a  strange, 
inverted  acknowledgment  of  a  tie,  and  in  a  way  I  was 
glad  of  it. 

"My  time's  short  now,"  said  Dick,  "they're  letting 
me  go  at  the  end  of  next  week." 

"I  think,"  said  Rodd,  "my  time's  about  up  too,  and 
that  it  would  be  absurd  for  me  not  to  join  your  lot, 
if  you'll  have  me." 

"I  expect  you  to,"  replied  the  lad. 


RESPONSIBILITY  297 

And  now  I  began  to  realise  expiation  after  the  man- 
ner which  Claud  had  promised.  The  absorbing  interest 
which  had  come  into  my  life  along  a  line  of  unimagined 
susceptibility  had  quickly  deepened  to  affection,  and  at 
last  I  had  begun  to  know  the  true  joy  of  parentage,  the 
expenditure  of  self.  A  fig  for  stolen  happiness!  I 
was  immensely  happy.  Happy  until  the  dread  matter 
of  joining  up  became  more  than  talk.  A  date  had  been 
fixed,  a  date  which  loomed  ahead,  the  gateway  to  sus- 
pense. I  will  not  enlarge  here;  all  our  English  fathers 
will  know  what  I  mean.  And  now  it  was  that  my 
fatherhood  took  on  a  different  shade.  I  be<ran  to  realise 
that  less  even  than  my  right  to  happiness  was  the  right 
to  elder  sacrifice  which  at  that  time  stood  behind  the 
bright  boyish  renunciations. 

O  greatest  of  all  renunciations,  that  sombre  sacrifice 
of  the  fathers  of  England  offering  up  in  their  children 
their  proper  immortality !  Theirs  the  sacrifice  hallowed 
by  the  most  august  of  sanctions;  God  so  loved  the 
world.  .  .  .  But  mv  offering  was  different.  Of  anxiety 
and  apprehension  I  was  to  know  the  full  share;  of 
that  pride  which  is  the  anodyne  of  grief  I  was  to 
have  no  share  at  all.  In  the  worst  case  not  even  the 
supreme  consolation  would  be  mine.  I  had  filched 
happiness;  the  tragic  uplift  which  is  bereavement  I 
might  have  had  to  steal  also. 


And  then  they  both  joined  up.  From  Rodd's  first 
letters  I  gathered  that  training  in  the  army  is  not  the 
semi-serious,  wholly  facetious  business  our  writers  of 
war  books  and  contributors  to  Punch  would  make  it 
out  to  be.  Claud  wrote  of  one  long  round  of  boredom 
and  monotony,  of  petty  spite,  vindictiveness,  and  mean- 


298  RESPONSIBILITY 

ingless,  petty  tyranny.  Romantic  glamour  is  the  decent 
cloak  we  throw  over  the  thing. 

"Write  me  as  one  who  loathes  his  fellow-men.  It  is 
"Sunday  afternoon,  the  rain  rattles  on  the  tin  roof 
"like  an  artillery  of  pea-she  all  around  us  is  a 

"sea  of  mud  from  which  the  huts  rise  up  like  submerged 
"wrecks  at  low  water.  Thirty  of  us  are  lying  on  our 
"beds  talking  and  spitting,  writing  and  spitting.  A 
"few  asleep.  A  man  with  a  clasp-knife  on  the  left  of 
"me  is  performing  an  operation  on  an  ingrowing  toe- 
"nail.  I  know  hy  heart  the  shape  of  his  feet,  when 
"he  washed  them  last  and  when  he  will  wash  them 
"again.  The  fellow  on  my  right  is  sleeping  oB  the 
"effects  of  his  Saturday  night's  debauch,  lit-  was  si<-k 
"in  the  space  between  our  floorboards.  Your  bey  Dick 
"held  his  head  and  cleaned  up  for  him.  .  .  .  I  hate 
"the  damp,  close  smell  of  men's  bod  T  hate  all 

"proximities.  The  swearing  annoys  me.  ft  is  perfunc- 
"tory  and  unimaginative.  I  transcril  e  From  a  recital  of 
"woes  in  progress  as  T  write 

"'So  I  says  to  the  CorpVl:  "Where  the  'ell  do  you 
"want  the  bleeding  bucket  :"     "In  the  bloody  corn 
"says  'e.     "Oh/'  I.     And  I  puts  the  thing  in  the 

"bloodv    con.  Then    the    ! 

"along.  ""Wot  the  'ell's  this  bleeding  bucket  doing 
"'ere?"  'e  says.'     And  so  on.  body  listens;   the 

"fellow  drones  on.     'Wet  time  is  it  '.'  out  a  man 

"three  beds  away.  Somebody  tells  him  the  time.  'An- 
"other  hour,  and  then  for  some  bloody  1  eer,'  and  he 
"gives  an  anticipatory  belch. 

"And  yet  I  know  these  to  be  brave  fellows.  I  know 
"that  great  deeds  are  maturing,  that  it  is  I  and  not 
"they  who  risk  being  shot  for  cowardice.  My  point  is 
"that  fine  feelings  are  no  part  of  war  and  that  you 


RESPONSIBILITY  299 

"sentimentalists  cannot  stomach  us  unless  we  are  dressed 
"up  like  heroes  in  a  schoolboy  tale.  I  have  a  great  re- 
spect for  our  sergeant-major,  the  same  kind  of  respect 
"that  one  has  for  the  fellow  in  gold  braid  who  opens  cab 
"doors  at  the  Trocadero.  I  have  had  a  peep  into  his 
"mind.    What  an  abyss ! 

"Dick  is  full  of  the  passion  for  service  and  it  is 
"wonderful  to  watch  the  things  he  will  do  for  the  most 
"case-hardened  ruffian.  There  is  a  quality  of  ecstasy 
"about  all  he  does.  I've  seen  him  wash  the  feet  of 
"a  man  who  was  too  fagged  to  do  it  for  himself.  ~No 
"one  else  would  dream  of  such  a  thing  nor  would  it 
"have  been  acceptable  at  any  other  hands.  The  fel- 
"low  is  a  Covent  Garden  porter,  lets  Dick  do  as  he 
"likes  and  follows  him  round  the  camp  like  a  dog. 
"And  now  I  must  tell  you  a  funny  thing.  He  and  I 
"were  both  offered  jobs  as  officer's  servant.  Your 
"son  turned  it  down  at  once,  whereas  I  jumped  at  it 
"out  of  sheer  boredom.  Of  course  it's  amusing.  The 
"fellow  is  a  dressy  little  chap  out  of  a  bank.  I  model 
"myself  on  the  butler  in  The  Admirable  Crichton 
"and  wash  my  hands  with  invisible  soap,  but  'my  officer' 
is  impervious  to  irony.     It's  an  immense  lark." 


«i 


From  which  it  will  be  seen  that  in  spite  of  himself 
Claud  was  beginning  to  fall  into  the  "schoolboy"  style. 
Dick  wrote  seldom.  He  was  busy  doing  things,  he 
explained.  They  always  contrived  to  come  up  on  leave 
together  and  we  sucked  pleasure  out  of  the  town  as  we 
had  never  done  before.  We  tasted  London ;  we  smacked 
our  lips  over  it;  inhaled  its  blessed  air  and  stared  with 
new-washen  eyes  at  its  jewelled  streets — Claud,  because 
he  was  so  soon  to  leave  it  and  had  I  think  some  secret 
foreboding,  Richard  because  of  his  newly-found  friends. 


300  RESPONSIBILITY, 

We  would  walk  the  streets  for  hours  together.  We 
would  hegin  at  the  little  island  in  Piccadilly  Circus 
where  the  flower  women,  the  fountain,  and  the  little 
flighty  statue  are,  cross  over  to  the  corner  by  the  Monico 
and  adventure  through  the  absurd  beginnings  of  a 
colonnade,  Dick  bestowing  something  on  the  old  lady 
with  the  grey  hair  falling  scantily  down  sunken  cheeks. 
There  was  something  in  the  withered  grace  of  this 
poor  creature  which  set  her  back  in  a  legendary  past. 
Rodd  would  insist  upon  stage-triumphs  of  the  seventies 
and  memories  fragrant  with  old-fashioned  bouquets  and 
the  scent  of  patchouli.  We  never  heard  her  voice ;  her 
thanks  were  conveyed  in  a  delicate,  well-bred  simper. 
Then  on  along  the  magnificent  curve  of  Regent  Street 
above  which  clouds  are  always  massing  as  in  Pennell's 
drawing.  We  would  sit  for  hours  in  the  Cafe  Royal 
and  Rodd  would  talk  of  Rothenstein  and  Beardsley  and 
Wilde,  and  Dick  would  listen  and  laugh  at  what  he 
called  our  "well-dressed"  enthusiasm.  Or  he  would 
shake  those  black  locks  of  his,  and  the  nettled  look 
would  come  into  his  eyes  and  he  would  tell  us  how 
waiters  live.  .  .  . 

Then  we  would  indulge  in  one  of  those  incredible 
Soho  dinners  where  the  world  is  again  pagan.  One 
wonders  whether  these  little  restaurants  have  survived 
the  war.  Strange  how  their  simplicities,  the  miniature 
chairs  and  rickety  tables,  the  half-dozen  stunted  shrubs 
in  green  pots,  the  too-candid  windows  and  the  discreet 
curtains  imbued  us  all  with  primitive  gaiety,  how  the 
certainty  of  being  overheard  removed  all  barriers  to 
free  speech. 

"I  remember,"  said  Rodd,  "taking  a  millionaire 
to  the  Queen's  Hall  and  piloting  him  through  some 
Debussy.     I  charged  him  a  guinea  and  he  dined  me 


RESPONSIBILITY  301 

at  the  Majestic  afterwards.  It  was  like  eating  thirty 
shillings'  worth  of  pile  carpets  and  gilt  mirrors." 

It  goes  without  saying  that  Rodd  invented  intimate 
and  scandalous  history  to  explain  the  light-heartedness 
of  the  diners.  Now  and  again  pale-faced,  bespectacled 
women,  "sad"  in  the  pastry  sense  of  sadness,  would 
put  in  a  startled  appearance.  Dick  would  have  them 
to  be  art  students  or  suffragettes,  I  leaning  to  the  theory 
of  Repertory  actresses  out  of  work,  Rodd  maintaining 
that  they  must  be  materialisations  of  Henry  James, 
whom  by  the  way  he  adored.  Once,  wonderfully,  we 
heard  a  little  man  with  a  trick  of  screwing  up  his 
eyes  explain  in  a  high-pitched  eager  voice  how  much 
better  they  do  this  sort  of  thing  in  Bursley. 

Then  we  would  go  down  to  that  other  of  London's 
magnificent  curves,  the  Embankment,  and  it  would  be 
Dick's  turn  to  talk.  He  could  tell  such  tales  of  poverty 
as  are  unknown  to  the  doctors  of  the  body  politic 
prescribing  with  head  averted  from  the  disease.  He 
would  tell  of  the  hunger  that  is  hunger  indeed^  and  not 
the  reward  of  a  day's  tramp  among  hills. 

Or  we  would  make  an  excursion  to  the  Zoological 
Gardens  and  listen  whilst  Claud  recited  the  last  royal 
pages  of  Manette  Salomon  before  some  stupendous 
cage.  Or  walk  up  and  down  before  the  bars  of  Welling- 
ton Barracks,  where  the  soldiers  pace  the  dull  Sunday 
away.  Here  Dick  had  a  chum  or  two,  and  we  would  be 
presented  with  ceremony  and  get  strange  glimpses  of  a 
mentality  which  is  not  the  civilian's.  And  once  we 
saw  the  departure  of  a  draft  of  Grenadiers.  Remember 
that  we  were  not  winning  then.  As  the  band  played 
the  men  out  of  the  gates  and  through  the  crowd  I  saw 
that  Rodd  was  frankly  crying.  Dick's  face  was  bright 
and  shining,  his  elation  taking  the  practical  turn. 


302  RESPONSIBILITY 

"Don't  let's  miss  the  train  back  to-night,"  he  said, 
putting  his  arm  through  Rodd's. 

"Rum  soldiers,  you  two,"  I  observed. 

Often  they  would  bring  on  leave  with  them  the  Covent 
Garden  porter,  who  was  a  boxer  of  fame  down  Lam- 
beth way.  The  fellow  had  the  most  perfectly  gorgeous 
shock  of  red  hair  and  an  unbounded  admiration  for 
Dick;  he  had  neither  parents  nor  friends,  and  was  I 
thought  a  trifle  shy  of  the  police.  Such  manners  as 
he  had  were  not  good,  but  he  meant  well.  Both  he 
and  Dick  took  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  they  should 
not  be  separated.  I  hope  Claud  and  I  accepted  Ernie 
Crowe  with  good  grace,  though  he  did  cut  a  rum  figure 
on  occasion.  He  spoke  seldom,  and  when  he  did  it  was 
to  ring  the  changes  on  half-a-dozen  catch-words.  "It's 
s'no  use !"  "S'marvellous !"  "From  the  sublime  to  the 
gor-blimy!"  "Another  spasm,  Bert"  was  his  invariable 
way  of  asking  for  a  second  helping,  and  when  his  glas3 
was  empty  he  would  rub  a  wetted  finger  round  the  rim 
and  say:  "If  this  glass  speaks  it  wants  more."  Or  he 
would  sing  to  himself  tunelessly  by  the  hour  together 
ditties  reminiscent  of  the  cheaper  music-halls.  I  do  not 
suppose  I  shall  ever  forget  the  crazy  words: 

I  wore  a  tunic, 

A  smart  khaki  tunic, 

While  you  wore  your  civvy  clothes, 

You  drank  our  booze 

While  we  fought  at  Loos, 

Ypres,  the  Aisne  and  the  Marne; 

You  stole  our  wenches 

While  we  were  in  the  trenches 

Fighting  an  angry  foe, 

You  were  a-slacking 

While  we  were  attacking 

The  Huns  on  the  Menin  Eoad. 

And  these : 


RESPONSIBILITY  303 

Oh,  give  three  cheers 

Or  all  that  you  can  spare 

For  I'm  one  of  the  stay-at-home  Brigade 

Admired  by  every  pretty  maid; 

And  if  war  breaks  out 

I'll  be  the  first  to  go — 

Down  to  the  station  to  see  them  off 

But  not  to  fight  the  foe. 

I  never  heard  him  sing  any  other  songs  but  at  these 
he  would  drone  away  for  hours  without  semblance  of 
either  animation   or  interest. 

Once  Dick  wrote  to  say  that  on  the  following  Satur- 
day "Ginger"  was  to  box  fifteen  rounds  at  Darcy's, 
the  dingy  little  booth  which  as  all  the  world  knows  is 
just  over  the  river.  Saturday  evening  saw  us  installed 
in  the  narrow  plush  seats  below  the  ropes  and  immedi- 
ately behind  the  referee. 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  the  boxing  ring  is  not  the 
most  fascinating  of  all  entertainments.  The  principals 
are  so  convincingly  in  earnest  and  their  emotion,  un- 
like the  actor's,  is  unrehearsed.  The  spectators  for 
the  most  part  have  been  principals  in  their  turn,  and 
they  are  the  finest  critics  of  their  art.  You  may,  an 
you  are  malicious,  make  pathetical  compare  with  the 
amateurish  ecstasies  of  your  actor  at  a  professional 
matinee.  The  crowd  is  fascination  unleavened,  the 
over-aware,  leering  crowd  of  backers,  trainers  and  their 
attendant  "stables,"  of  evil-smelling  mechanicals,  roughs 
of  the  suspect  muffler  and  dandiacal,  too  explicit  boots, 
greasy  publicans  of  the  gaudy  and  evil-speaking  hands, 
battered  warriors  en  pleine  decadence,  a  nigger  or  two. 
Fascination  in  the  coarse  tobacco,  the  sawdust,  the 
spittle;  in  the  reek  and  squalor,  the  white  glare  of 
the  arc  lights.  In  these  merciless  rays  there  is  no 
shadow,  save  under  the  eyes  of  the  boxers  and  in  the 


804  RESPONSIBILITY 

hollows  of  their  throats;  you  would  say  the  powdered 
dancers  of  some  wistful  ballet.  Fascination  in  the 
four-sidedness  of  the  ring,  the  way  it  will  slew  to  rhom- 
bus and  rhomboid,  in  the  whity-grey  strands  of  the 
twisted,  dingy  ropes,  in  the  bucket  and  bottle  common 
to  the  smaller,  inconsiderable  fry.  Fascination  in  the 
seconds'  economy  of  time,  the  precision  with  which 
they  sling  the  chair  to  receive  the  drooping  body.  Deft 
beyond  praise  the  manipulation  of  tired  thighs,  the  chaf- 
ing and  the  kneading,  the  restoration  of  the  flesh  and 
renewal  of  the  spirit.  Admirable  in  brotherliness  the 
surgery  of  the  corner.  The  flapping  towels  are  a  braver 
sight  to  me  than  any  flutter  of  pennons  or  waving  of 
standards.  In  a  boxing  booth  I  became  conscious  of  my 
nationality,  of  the  England  of  Sayers  and  Heenan, 
of  Hazlitt's  page. 

]STo  theatre  in  the  world  to  which  entry  may  be  as 
exciting  as  this  pushing,  shouldering  irruption,  the 
quick  passage  down  the  clamorous  human  lane,  the 
thrust  over  the  boots  of  East-Enders  supporting  their 
chins  on  the  very  floor  of  the  ring  and  drinking  with 
open  mouth  and  nostrils  the  fleck  and  spume  of  battle, 
the  drench  and  dribble  of  their  heroes.  From  all  parts 
of  the  house  the  raucous  cries : 

"Box  'im,  kid!" 

"  'Ave  a  fight,  yeh  barstard !" 

"Go  downstairs  to  'im !     Up  ter  yer  elbow !" 

"Shove  'is  bleedin'  'e'd  back!" 

"Cure  'is  bloody  adenoids !" 

Then  when  the  blood  flows  freely : 

"Jam  for  tea,  muwer!" 

"Punch  the  b open!" 

"  'E's  done;  knock  'ell  out  of  'im!" 

And  at  last : 


RESPONSIBILITY  305 

"Got  'im,  be  Christ!"  as  the  lad  goes  down  and 
sprawls  on  his  stomach  in  utter  disgrace.  Then  the 
count,  the  rise  to  the  feet,  the  clumsy  touch  of  the 
victor's  glove,  the  hawking  and  spitting,  the  backward 
padded  wipe  of  the  nose,  the  tumble  through  the  ropes. 

And  the  inherent  beauty?  Oh,  convincingly,  im- 
perishably,  the  beauty  is  there.  Never  have  I  seen 
setting  sun  throw  his  last  rays  of  burnished  copper 
more  handsomely,  glintingly,  magically  than  through 
the  open  windows  in  the  unpretentious  dome.  Windows 
are  they,  or  doors?  They  fold  back  shutter-wise  to 
the  sweating  gallery  walls,  ostensible  outlets  for  the 
emanations  of  humanity,  insistently  to  me  the  gateways 
of  romance.  Dusk  steals  apace  and  these  humble  case- 
ments take  on  the  blue  of  the  doorways  in  Scheherazade, 
the  ominous  bine  of  the  lovers'  portals.  The  darkness 
deepens  and  the  trains  thundering  along  the  neigh- 
bouring railway  bridge  rock  our  crazy  building  but 
may  not  stir  a  fold  in  the  draperies  of  the  violet  night. 
A  moth  hangs  upon  this  curtain,  hovers  for  a  moment 
over  the  ring  as  though  in  curious  inspection  of  some 
masterpiece  in  ivory,  some  Japanese  sculptor's  The 
Boxers,  brushes  a  bare  shoulder  and  is  lost  in  the  night, 
the  impenetrable  night  of  Bermondsey  and  Bethnal 
Green.  Pale  they  look  against  the  blue,  these  taut, 
over-intense  figures,  their  eyes  a  little  weary,  the 
shadows  under  them  deepening  with  the  strain.  A  slip, 
a  hand  knocked  down  and  the  boxers  touch  gloves. 
As  they  cross  to  their  corners  at  the  bell  the  offender 
gives  his  opponent  a  friendly  tap  on  the  shoulder,  the 
offender  to  reply  with  a  flick  to  the  point  in  token  of 
perfect  amity. 

Sometimes  I  think  this  little  ring  at  Darcey's  a  not 
unfitting  symbol  of  the  world.     Better  the  stand-up 


306  RESPONSIBILITY 

fight  under  rules,  nay,  better  the  brawl  at  the  street 
corner,  than  the  queasy  counterings  of  tradesmen. 
Stunted  intelligence  and  perfect  proportions;  "quiffs" 
of  matted  hair  over  low  foreheads,  shaven  necks  and 
perfect  courage;  manners  of  the  bully  and  working 
sense  of  fair  play;  hands  unimaginably  decorated  with 
butterflies,  anchors,  crossed  hearts  and  women's  names, 
exchanging  indifferently  the  bandages  of  their  trade 
for  the  copper,  brass  and  silver  tokens  of  their  loves; 
Greek  statues  descending  with  equanimity  to  the  in- 
famous cut  and  shoddy  of  East  End  wear — to  me  this 
has  always  been  a  world  of  infinite  discovery,  a  world 
of  which  the  absorbing  interest  is  the  sufficient  sanction. 

Of  our  bout  not  much  to  be  said.  Crowe  strips  like 
a  model  of  Titian,  burnt  head  of  flame  and  skin  of 
alabaster;  his  opponent  swarthiness  itself  and  shaking 
a  black  mane  over  eyes  the  mirror  of  the  sea.  Like 
most  sailors  he  is  grandly  tattooed,  the  chief  piece  a 
Crucifixion,  the  Chinese  cast  in  the  countenance  indi- 
cating some  far-off  Eastern  station. 

"You've  got  to  be  tatooed  in  the  navy,"  explains 
Dick,  "or  else  they  think  you're  a  mammy's  boy." 

"I  remember  a  Frenchman  telling  me,"  says  Claud, 
"that  the  custom  is  not  popular  in  France  with  the 
exception  of  Pierre  Loti  and  an  occasional  apache." 

The  sailor  turns  out  to  be  much  too  good  for  Crowe, 
who  takes  tremendous  punishment  with  stolid  endur- 
ance. "Golden  blood  lacing  his  silver  skin,"  quotes 
Rodd,  and  the  worse  the  punishment  the  harder  the 
boy  fi<rhts.  "One,  two,  three,"  the  gallery  counts  au- 
dibly as  Ernie  runs  into  the  sailor's  straight  lefts. 
"Four,"  and  again  "Five."  Our  lad  looks  up  with  a 
grin.  "Six,"  he  shouts,  and  has  his  mouth  cruelly 
closed.    But  no  boxing  crowd  can  resist  pluck  for  long, 


RESPONSIBILITY  307 

and  in  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  round,  after  the  boy 
has  been  sent  down  four  times,  the  gallery  raises  a 
sympathetic  shout  of  "Turn  it  up,  Ginger !"  and  Crowe 
drops  his  hands.  Whereupon  his  opponent  puts  an 
arm  round  him  and  kisses  him  sailor-wise. 

At  other  times  there  were  the  music-halls,  among 
whose  meaningless  folly  we  discovered  a  gem  which  sent 
Rodd  into  ecstasies  of  decadent  comparison.  Imagine 
a  woman  no  longer  young  and  whose  figure  betrays  no 
sign  of  sex.  Lithe  as  a  boy,  she  has  a  ramrod's  dignity 
and  poise.  Her  gestures  have  something  of  breeding 
and  there  is  a  conscious  correctness  in  the  accents  of 
her  deep  and  measured  voice.  Her  tale  a  mockery  of 
West  End  pavements,  a  romance  of  Piccadilly  a  rebours. 
The  high-flyer  on  a  broken  wing,  the  roue  in  disastrous 
hey-day,  the  exquisite  taking  in  his  belt  with  a  smile. 
And  then  the  clothes!  Beyond  chemical  aid,  beyond 
mender's  hope,  never  never  to  be  rejuvenated  par  les 
benzines,  they  adorn  their  last  human  wearer.  Next  a 
scarecrow  and  last  oblivion.  Black,  black,  not  a  note 
of  white,  the  stock  staying  the  jaws  as  jaws  must  come 
to  be  stayed,  ghastly-wise;  this  that  seems  alive  is  al- 
ready dead.  The  matter  of  the  song  sheer  tragedy,  the 
manner  purest  music-hall ;  pinched  belly  and  moral 
wrack  in  terms  of  the  unsurrendering  jaunty. 

I've  had  a  banana, 
With  Lady  Di-an-a. 

and  the  smile  the  strained  and  haggard  grin  of  starva- 
tion. 

But  I  notice  that  Dick's  hands  are  clenched  and 
his  eye  bright.    "Bravo !"  he  cries. 

Lovely,  beyond  all  imagination  lovely  in  sheer  in- 
credibility these  palaces  of  the  people,  enlivened  pre- 


308  RESPONSIBILITY 

posterously  with  a  jumble  of  all  the  styles.  French 
Louis  tumbling  over  French  Louis  in  a  grab  at  the 
proscenium  or  a  thrust  for  the  balcony,  the  hinmost 
to  content  himself  with  architrave  and  lintel  or  what- 
ever the  architect's  word  for  tops  and  sides.  No  hint 
of  Greek  frieze  or  Byzantine  touch  in  the  ceiling,  and 
you  may  reckon  the  measure  skimped.  And  then  the 
plush,  the  ceaseless  waves  of  red,  unendurable  plush. 

"They  remind  me,"  says  Rodd,  "of  that  sentence  of 
Daudet's  in  which  he  compares  the  break  of  waves 
to  the  flapping  of  wet  blankets." 

But  there  is  enchantment  in  the  place,  I  tell  him, 
in  the  open  mouths,  the  unashamed  clasping  of  hands, 
the  grotesque,  counter-jumping  elegance  of  the  swains. 
Enchantment  in  the  impact  of  the  "artistes"  upon  the 
emporium's  squires  and  dames.  Enchantment  in  the 
quintessential  commonness.  To  it.  mediocrity,  and 
pell-mell!  Sentimental  obscenity  telling  the  beads  of 
passion  flagrantly  factitious,  you  on  the  stage  are  an 
amusing  sister  to  the  high-born  marketry  zealously 
trumpeting  her  wares  in  the  halfpenny  press.  Enchant- 
ment evervwhere,  in  vice  so  decentlv  veiled  that  we 
need  not  pretend  to  turn  our  beads,  in  the  stolid  un- 
observant policemen,  in  the  doorkeepers  into  whose  soul 
the  pitiful  buffoonery  has  so  pitilessly  entered.    .    .    . 

And  yet,  and  yet  in  all  this  stupid  welter  there  is 
beauty  and  emotion  to  be  discovered.  After  the  in- 
terval the  curtain  is  raised  to  disclose  a  grand  piano — 
bearing  the  maker's  name  in  letters  a  foot  tall,  but  they 
permit  that  at  even  the  best  concerts — an  immaculate 
gentleman  in  evening  dress,  a  florid  lady  and  a  young 
person  in  pink.  Immaculacy  wields  a  flute,  the  florid 
lady,  it  is  obvious,  will  never  desert  her  piano,  the 
young  person  faintly  chirps.     After  a  time  we  become 


RESPONSIBILITY  309 

conscious  of  a  fourth  individual  of  the  fullest  possible 
habit  with  a  wealth  of  fat  overflowing  the  velvet  collar 
of  a  purple  dinner-jacket.  He  clasps  a  violoncello  to  his 
stomach. 

"Isn't  it  time  that  bloke  did  summat?"  asks  Ernie, 
spitting  and  preparing  to  "put  on"  a  fag. 

And  the  bloke  does  summat.  He  plays  the  slow 
movement  from  Bizet's  L'Arlesierme,  that  ineffable  ac- 
companiment to  joy  deferred.  He  plays  it  exquisitely, 
the  house  is  hushed,  and  the  match  goes  out  in  Crowe's 
unheeding  fingers.  I  tell  Dick  something  of  the  story 
of  the  old  shepherd  finding  happiness  on  the  edge  of 
the  grave. 

"I  hope  this  isn't  the  edge  of  the  grave  for  me," 
he  says  softly.     "I  mean  for  your  sake,  dad." 

This  is  the  only  time  I  have  known  my  son  to  make 
the  millionth  part  of  a  move  in  the  sentimental  direc- 
tion. 

And  then  my  uncle  died,  and  I  went  north  for  the 
funeral.  I  found  little  changed  in  Manchester  beyond 
the  erection  of  a  giant  hotel  and  an  untidy  mess  where 
a  hospital  had  been  pulled  down.  There  was  no  change 
in  my  old  friend,  Portwood.  In  his  youth  he  had 
composed  such  a  mask  for  grief  as  should  endure 
till  dissolution. 

"I  am  thinking  of  retiring  from  this  world  of  sad- 
ness," said  the  monstrous  fellow,  waving  a  plump  yet 
mournful  arm. 

"Into  your  grave,  Portwood  ?" 

He  smiled. 

"I  see  your  dear  father  did  not  neglect  to  instil  the 
love  of  our  national  dramatist  into  his  son,"  he  said 
with  a  pomposity  worthy  of  his  many  chins.     "Let 


310  RESPONSIBILITY 

me  see,  had  I  the  pleasure  of — er "     Again  he 

waved  his  lugubrious  arm. 

"No,"  I  said. 

"I  myself  am  attached  to  the  theatre,"  he  went  on. 
"Attached.  You  might  not  think  it,  Mr  Marston, 
but  I  do  a  good  deal  in  that  line  myself.  In  an  amateur 
way.  Purely  amateur.  Light!  comedy;  what  they 
call  the  June  Premier.  I  find  it  a  great  relief  from 
business,  Mr  Marston.  A  great  relief.  I  hope  to  retire 
shortly.  My  son  will  follow  me,  but  not,  1  hope  for  a 
while,  in  the  professional  sense." 

Geoffrey  and  I  rode  in  the  same  carriage.  He  hardly 
spoke  and  relieved  himself  throughout  the  journey  with 
a  low,  melancholy  and  at  times  soundless  pursing  of 
the  lips. 

My  uncle's  will  contained  a  clause  conceived  in  his 
best  vein  of  irony. 

"I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  nephew  Edward  Marston 
"the  sum  of  one  hundred  pounds  a  year  free  of  all  tax, 
"in  the  conviction  that  those  pursuits  which  he  has 
"preferred  above  commercial  industry  will  lead  to  the 
"squandering  of  his  fortune  and  bring  him  to  the  gutter 
"at  the  last.  I  leave  him  this  pittance  in  the  hope  that 
"he  may  never  taste  of  that  bitterness  which  inevitably 
"attends  the  neglect  of  business  principles." 

Stern,  grim  and  consistent  to  the  last.  For,  of 
course,  he  never  knew  the  authorship  of  my  infamous 
masterpieces  and  the  fortune  they  brought  me. 

Of  Monica  I  saw  little. 

On  my  return  to  town  the  news  that  Rodd  and  Dick 
had  left  for  France. 


RESPONSIBILITY  311 

§  vi 

I  have  every  letter  that  Claud  ever  wrote  to  me  in 
the  course  of  his  brilliant  career.  Or  if  it  is  not 
brilliant  I  say  with  decision  that  brilliance  lay  ahead. 

"I  begin  to  understand  the  meaning  of  discipline  [he 
"wrote].  By  dint  of  obeying  every  man's  behest,  by 
"sheer  force  of  habit,  I  am  become  a  machine.  I 
"take  my  officer's  shilling  and  get  myself  a  glass  of 
"beer.  I  jump  to  an  order,  I  am  smart  on  parade. 
"According  to  the  papers  the  army  has  imbued  me  with 
"self-respect  and  self-control,  has  taught  me  the  mean- 
"ing  of  freedom.  .  .  .  The  truth  is  that  the  business 
"of  war  is  so  intolerable  that  flesh  and  blood  acting 
"under  reason  and  without  discipline  must  inevitably 
"give  way.  It  is  the  knowledge  that  disobedience  is 
"death  which,  personally,  makes  me  obey.  And  then 
"one  counts  on  the  thousand  to  one  chance  of  getting 
"through.  At  least  I  do.  I  fail  miserably,  not  in 
"heroism  but  in  ordinary  pluck.  The  men  are  splendid, 
"splendid  beyond  words.  . 


» 


It  had  been  to  while  away  the  infinite  tedium  of 
Salisbury  Plain,  to  beguile  the  terror  which  stalks  in 
Flanders  that  Claud  wrote  his  one  and  only  book.  In 
the  beginning  highly  worked,  overworked  even,  it  be- 
comes towards  the  middle  agitated,  towards  the  end 
headlong.  There  the  sentences  breathe  an  urgency,  an 
eagerness  for  dispatch,  a  desire  to  have  done.  Death 
was  so  obviously  at  hand.  I  hope  and  believe  tnat  Claud 
would  have  approved  my  editing  which  has  been  en- 
tirely confined  to  joining  up  the  argument  where  a 
letter  has  gone  astray.     Where  the  gaps  are  simply  a 


312  RESPONSIBILITY 

matter  of  Claud's  quick  wit  against  the  dunderhead 
I  have  refrained.  Heavens,  what  trouble  I  had  to  find 
a  publisher  who  was  neither  hostile  nor  indifferent. 
Some  of  them  talked  paper  shortage  whilst  others  re- 
ferred humorously — damn  these — to  the  end  of  the 
war.  At  last  I  found  a  man  who  consented  not  to  play 
the  fool.  I  was  not  with  him  for  more  than  two  min- 
utes.   He  said : 

"Let  me  understand  you,  Mr  Marston.  You  say 
the  book  is  a  masterpiece  and  you  should  know.  You 
fear  we  shall  lose  on  the  book.  Well,  I've  an  uncom- 
fortable feeling  that  we've  published  too  much  rubbish 
lately.  In  any  case  we've  made  a  great  deal  of  money 
and  can  afford  something  good.  I'll  give  Mr  Rodd's 
executors " 

"There  aren't  any,"  I  interrupted. 

"I'll  give  whoever  is  entitled  to  it  seven  pence-half- 
penny on  every  copy  we  sell.  We  shall  run  off  fifteen 
hundred  and  publish  at  seven-and-sixpenco.  The  book- 
seller's share  will  bo  half-a-crown.  I  am  not  interested 
in  the  ethics  of  the  trade." 

And  so  it  was  printed.  The  binding  is  of  dark 
green  with  just  the  thinnest  gold  line  along  the  top, 
and  the  title  a  parehmenty  slip  gummed  on  the  back. 
Stout  paper,  black  type  and  not  a  single  printer's  orna- 
ment. The  whole  appearance  beautiful  but  not  so  that 
the  ordinary  reader  will  jib  at  it.  One  of  Olaud'a 
favourite  maxims  was  that  a  book  is  immensely  affected 
by  what  it  looks  like  and  how  it  handles.  I  hope  I 
have  made  him  so  clear  to  you  that  there  is  no  need  to 
insist  on  the  book's  tribute  to  the  obscure  and  the  little- 
understood.  It  bore  the  dedication:  To  the  despised 
and  rejected. 

Last    Judgments    does    not    formulate    any    settled 


RESPONSIBILITY  313 

theories;  or  rather,  such  theories  as  it  contains  are 
mostly  contradictory.  It  is  essentially  the  work  of  a 
man  eager  to  grasp  and  record,  who  can  anathematise  at 
forty  his  adorations  of  twenty-five.  It  is  a  record  of 
frank  and  gallant  enthusiasms,  of  adventurous  dis- 
coveries. It  may  he  fairly  claimed  for  its  author  that 
he  made  known  to  English  readers  at  least  one  lovely 
story,  Jean  de  Ferriere's  Une  Ame  Obscure,  and  one 
exquisite  piece  of  pure  fantasy,  Laforgue's  Pierrot 
Fumiste.  And,  of  course,  Socialism,  Socialism  every- 
where. Socialism  even  in  such  a  poem  as  Maurice 
Magro's  La  Tristesse  du  Nain  Cliinois,  that  history  of 
the  Chinese  dwarf  who  refused  to  dance  for  his  Western 
hirers. 

"Are  not  Westerners  the  very  dregs  and  lees  of 
civilisation  ?  Do  they  not  train  their  children  to  devour 
one  another?  Do  they  not  exhale  the  very  odour  of 
corruption  ? 

Mais  vous,  des  que  vos  fils  sont  sortis  de  leur  mere, 
lis  apprennent  la  mort  et  sea  arts  raffines. 
Vous  les  faites  pourrir  dans  le  charnier  des  guerres, 
Vivants,  vous  les  sciez  et  vous  les  depecez. 

Je  prefere,  voyant  vos  mufles,  vos  babines, 
Ou  sont  inscrits  vos  sanguinaires  appetits 
Les  peupladcs  sans  front  de  File  Sakhaline, 
Les  deterreurs  de  morts  du  desert  de  Gobi. 

Votre  soleil  a  l'air  d'une  lune  et  me  navre. 

Vous  marcbez  en  mangeant  vos  enfants  dans  vos  bras 

Et  c'est  ce  qui  vous  fait  cette  odeur  de  cadavre 

Qui  sort  de  vos  habits   comme  un  nuage  gras.  .  .  . 

And  the  dwarf  tends  to  the  bastinado  his  mirth- 
less feet — should  not  the  dancer's  be  merry? — suffers 
his  cheek  to  be  pierced  by  the  hatpin  of  his  infamous 


314  RESPONSIBILITY 

proprietress.  Still  will  he  not  dance.  His  thoughts 
are  with  Buddha,  the  smiling  Buddha  of  his  jade-blue 
land. 

Le  fouet  tourbillona  sur  le  nain  impassible. 
Les  mirlitons  criaient  et  claquaicnt  les  drapeaux. 
Dans  sa  face  immobile  ain*i  qu'en  une  cible 
La  patronne  planta  son  epingle  a  ebapeau. 

Et  le  lutteur  vint  lui  donner  la  bastonnade, 
Et  la  foire  chanta  son  plaisir,  see  amours.  .  .  . 
Toujours  le  nain  voyait  pnrmi  le  bleu  des  jades 
Un   Bouddha  souriaut  au   fond   du   demi-jour.  .  .  ." 

"I  agree,"  Rodd  goes  on,  ''that  the  ticklish  job  of 
the  caesura  is  not  always  well  managed  and  that  Macro's 
rhyme  is  by  no  means  millionaire.  But  he  interests 
in  a  way  that  the  older  French  poets  with  their  classic 
frigidity  have  never  attained  to." 

Here  I  am  in  sympathey  with  Rodd.  What's  Hecuba 
to  Dick  on  twenty-two  shillings  a  week  I  Rodd  wanted 
poetry  to  deal  with  life  as  it  is.  with  the  life  one  kim 
the  life  of  the  Buspect  saloon  and  the  deserted  quay, 
the  questionable  lurking  shade,  the  sailor  home  from 
that  blue,  stale  prison  which  is  the  sea.  He  wanted 
poetry  to  deal  with  rape  and  murder  and  Lncesl  in 
our  colliery  districts — what's  Phedre  to  him  who  v. 
born  in  Lancashire?  with  abattoirs,  blast  furnaces  and 
brothels. 

"M.  Maine  is  apparently  young  enough  in  mind  to 
offer  himself  these  things  as  an  ultra-decadent  spectacle, 

whereas  he  should  be  looking  at  them  as  realities.  But 
at  least  he  is  honest  with  himself  and  with  me." 

The  book  gave  rise  to  most  of  the  critical  ineptitudes 
of  which  our  Press  is  capable.     Majesty  rapped  Claud 


RESPONSIBILITY  315 

over  the  knuckles  with  talk  of  "lapses  into  the  aesthetic 
fallacy,"  and  of  "the  questionable  utility  in  these  strenu- 
ous times  of  mere  aesthetic  speculation."  And  so  rigidly 
held  aloof  from  detailed  argument.  A  critic  of  ap- 
proved and  authentic  dullness  hung  upon  the  book  a 
column  dealing  with  "war  as  a  stimulant  to  literature," 
but  carefully  refrained  from  definitions.  Professorial 
owls  desired  to  know  what  dallying  with  the  tangles 
of  Neaera's  hair  had  to  do  with  soldiering.  "The  writer 
has  exchanged  the  pen  for  the  sword.  Let  him  that  has 
put  his  hand  to  the  sword "  etc.,  etc. 

Rodd  never  saw  his  book.  Shortly  before  it  ap- 
peared he  was  killed,  stupidly,  unheroically,  unneces- 
sarily even,  carrying  a  bucket.  He  foresaw  that  it 
would  be  like  that.  Dick's  account  of  his  friend's  end 
was  precise  and  unemotional ;  Crowe  coming  home  soon 
afterwards  had  little  to  add.   .    .    . 

The  fellow  seemed  to  think  it  natural  that  he  should 
spend  his  leave  with  me,  and  he  spent  it  almost  in 
silence.  He  was  vocal  on  one  subject  only,  that  of 
Dick. 

"I  foller  'im  abaht  like  a  dawg.  And  'e  don't  pay 
no  'eed.  Not  a  bone,  as  yer  might  say.  Well,  one 
day  'e  give  'is  bloody  life  fer  me,  near  as  a  toucher, 
and  I'd  give  my  bloody  life  fer  'im.     See?" 

Shortly  after  this  a  letter  from  Westrom.  He  was 
a  voluntary  orderly  in  a  Red  Cross  Hospital,  Crawley 
Bridge  way.    He  wrote: 

"It  is  not  much  that  I  am  doing.  Once  every  hour 
"I  have  to  see  to  a  poor  fellow  shot  through  the  bladder. 
"I  have  to  turn  another  in  bed.  I  have  to  be  cheerful 
"and  reply  to  their  jokes.  My  difficulty  is  with  myself. 
"I  find  that  in  spite  of  all  endeavour  I  am  not  one  with 


316  RESPONSIBILITY 

"them,  that  I  don't  always  understand  them.  I  should 
"certainly  be  incapable  of  enduring  what  they  endure, 
"but  I  am  equally  incapable  of  being  consoled  in  all 
"circumstances  by  a  cigarette.  A  'tag'  is  to  th< 
"boys  a  mistress  and  a  drug.  It  is  true  that  I  am  not 
"much  of  a  smoker.  I  had  no  idea,  until  I  took  this  job 
"on,  that  the  bodv  could  matter  so  infinitely.  Thank 
"God,  we  have  had  no  deaths.  I  find  myself  taking 
"refuge  every  now  anil  again  in  my  'pawky  provincial 
"humour/  as  you  once  had  the  charity  to  call  my 
"fun." 

And  so  even  old  Westrom  had  found  something  to 
do.  Of  all  our  little  coterie  there  was  only  myself 
left  in  England  who  had  done  nothing,  had  talked  and 
had  done  nothing.  Had  searched  for  an  anodyne  .  .  . 
an  anodyne.    .    .    . 

I  joined  up.  What  has  happened  to  me  out  here 
is  of  little  interest;  it  has  been  onheroic  and  some 
months  ago  I  took  to  pottering  about  Base  Hospitals. 
And  now  I  have  received  the  letter  which  reveals  what 
there  remains  in  life  for  me  to  do. 

"I  must  tell  you,  my  dear  father,  of  a  terrible  time 
"we  have  both  been  through.  We  were  asleep  about 
"two  in  the  morning  when  it  happened.  Davies  and 
"Crossley  were  killed  outright  and  Outhwaite,  a  very 
"decent  chap,  died  leaning  np  against  me.  I  was 
"frightened  as  I  have  never  been  frightened  before, 
"It  was  some  time  before  I  could  get  help.  I  am 
"very  sorry  to  Bay  that  Ernie  will  never  see  again. 
"My  left  arm  is  off  and  I'm  not  sure  whether  I  shall 
"be  able  to  walk  properly  as  I  got  it  pretty  badly  in 
"the  legs  as  well.     Ernie  threatens  to  carry  mo  about, 


RESPONSIBILITY  317 

"and  fortunately  I've  got  eyes  for  both.     Not  to  be 
"able  to  see — I  think  that  must  be  the  worst." 

And  that's  the  end. 

It  had  been  easy  to  refrain,  to  leave  unrecorded  those 
early  reachings-out  after  a  happiness  beyond  that  of 
eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  marriage,  a  round  on  the 
links,  the  ordinary  traffic  of  life;  to  keep  silence  over 
normal  allurement  and  unheroic  defeat.  Rapture  and 
disillusion,  middling  effort  and  mediocre  accomplish- 
ment, the  slackening  of  the  desire  for  achievement — all 
these  are  too  recognisably  a  part  of  every  man's  life 
to  have  been  worth  the  setting  down.  The  excuse, 
then  ?  Not  justification,  though  I  will  justify  the 
theft,  in  Rodd's  meaning  of  the  word,  of  which  such 
a  son  as  mine  was  the  reward  and  fulfilment.  Still 
less  a  warning.  I  have  a  contempt  for  the  weakling 
who  would  take  shelter  behind  second-hand  experience. 
I  have  written  for  my  son's  sake,  that  he  may  know 
his  father  to  have  been  capable  of  emotion.  The  very 
excess  and  parody  of  egotism,  you  will  say.  So  be  it. 
I  am  what  I  am  and  with  God  be  the  rest. 

Some  wiseacre  has  said  that  the  aim  of  philosophy 
is  to  direct  thought  to  the  examination  and  utilisation 
of  the  narrow  space  allotted  by  an  inscrutable  power 
to  a  finite  humanity,  and  to  refrain  from  speculation. 

My  mind  is  made  up.  I  will  speculate  no  more, 
neither  on  first  and  last  things,  nor  on  human  right 
and  wrong.  My  life  and  all  I  possess  belong  to  two 
poor  lads.  I  shall  have  trouble  with  Dick,  of  course, 
and  Crowe  is  my  only  lever.  If  my  boy  will  not 
accept  of  his  father's  abundance  then  his  chum  starves 
too.  I  thank  God  that  I  am  rich  and  that  riches  are 
not  all  I  have  to  give. 


REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAC'LITY 


AA    000  614  982    7 


